EVA Airways mulls Chinese cargo venture

EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) is considering forming a joint-venture cargo company with a Chinese airline and buying the world's largest cargo jet, the Airbus A380F, news reports said yesterday.

EVA Air vice president Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒) announced the expansion plan to reporters while visiting Airbus Industrie headquarters in Toulous, France, yesterday, press reports said.

Chang was in Toulous to take delivery of EVA's fifth A330-200.

"As EVA cannot fly across the Taiwan Strait due to Taipei's ban on air links with China, EVA plans to form a joint-venture cargo company with a Chinese airline to break into the mainland cargo market," the Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC) quoted Chang as saying.

"EVA and its mainland partner are likely to wet lease foreign-registered cargo jets to circumvent Taipei's ban on air links with China," the BCC reported.

Wet leasing pertains to leasing a plane together with the crew.

"The preparation is in the final stage, but both sides want to keep it low-key until after President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) is sworn in for his second term on May 20," the BCC said.

Taiwanese businesspeople hope Chen will loosen restrictions on investment in China by removing or relaxing the ban on direct links with China.

Chang also announced that EVA is considering ordering the world's largest cargo jet, the A380F, which is the freighter version of the A380, the world's largest passenger jet seating 555 passengers.

By increasing the payload and flight range, the A380F can cut cargo delivery time and save costs for airlines.

EVA is part of the Evergreen Group (長榮集團) founded by Chang Jung-fa (張榮發), father of EVA Air vice president Chang Kuo-wei.

Evergreen Group runs Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運), EVA Air and the Evergreen Laurel (長榮桂冠) hotel chain with hotels in this country and three others.