EVA Airways Corp (長榮), the nation's second-largest carrier, saw soaring global oil prices eat into its margins this year and its whole-year net income might fall short of NT$2 billion (US$60 million), compared with last year's NT$3.2 billion, a company official said yesterday.
"The unprecedented high oil prices have battered aviation operators and the tourism sector," said Eva Airways president Chang Kuo-wei (
Oil prices have accounted for 40 percent of its operation costs and eroded more than NT$3 billion in profits this year, Chang said.
record costs
China Airlines Ltd (華航) chairman Chiang Yao-chung (江耀宗) predic-ted in another conference yesterday that the global aviation industry will have to pay US$97 billion in fuel costs this year, a new record high, threatening operators' profits to move into the red.
EVA Airways' Chang said that global oil prices should have peaked and started to slide again as replaceable energy has been developed and oil demand has been contained. But how low prices can go remains to be seen, he said.
EVA Airways on Monday reported that its profits in the January to September period fell 48.7 percent from a year earlier to NT$1.37 billion, although sales in the same period rose 6.97 percent year-on-year to NT$64.29 billion.
shrinking profits
China Airlines' profits for the period shrank to NT$1.01 billion from NT$3.39 billion a year earlier. In the nine months under review, its sales rose 12.8 percent to NT$79.02 billion.
Looking ahead, Chang said that oil prices and the avian flu were two key variables that might affect the carrier's performance next year. Excluding these two factors, the company is expected to post NT$5 billion to NT$6 billion in profits next year after adding new air routes and disposing of old aircraft, he said.
New route
Stressing that the company's business operations will be focused on the profitable Northeast Asian and US routes on which passenger capacity continues to rise, he said that EVA Airways is slated to add a new route between Taipei and Japan's Nagoya next year, taking the number of cities in Northeast Asia it serves to a total of eight.
In the area of cargo transport, which takes up around 45 percent of its total operations, the company is expected to invest in a new cargo company to be set up by China's Shanghai Airlines (上海航空) next year. As Shanghai Airlines is soon to obtain the right to fly to the US, Chang said this would be beneficial for its investment interests.
As the world's seventh largest cargo carrier, EVA Airways sees rising cargo-carrying demand from Hong Kong and Macau. Demand on this route rose to 50 percent of its cargo operations this year, while demand from Taiwan has dwindled to less than 20 percent because of businesses migrating abroad.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last