EVA Airways Corp (
"The recent decline in fuel costs will help our profit for next year rather than helping turn around our finances this year," EVA Airways senior vice president Nieh Kuo-wei (
Nieh made the remark on the sideline of a press conference launching EVA's Taipei-to-Mumbai passenger service.
For the first three quarters of the year, EVA Airways saw its net loss climb to NT$2.32 billion (US$70.7 million), or NT$0.63 per share, because of high oil costs.
During the January to September period, the airline spent NT$5 billion to NT$6 billion more on fuel than it did during the same period last year, Nieh said.
Sales were certain increase in the brisk passenger and cargo sectors, Nieh said.
EVA posted sales growth of 7.96 percent to NT$77.97 billion for the first 10 months of the year from a year ago.
The deficit has had an impact on the airline's aircraft procurement plan. It had planned to buy 10 Boeing 777-200 cargo planes in June last year, on top of 12 Boeing 777-300ER and three Boeing 777-200 LR passenger jets it had previously ordered.
But the airline has now decided to change the two Boeing 777 passenger jets on order to Boeing 777 freighters. It is also converting six of the Boeing 747-400 Combi and two Boeing 747-400 passenger planes in its fleet to cargo aircraft, Nieh said.
The conversion is being done by Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd and the first converted cargo plane will be delivered in April, Nieh said.
EVA Airways' affiliate Evergreen Aviation Technologies Corp (EGAT,
He refused to reveal the value of the deal.
Meanwhile, the airline is banking on growing traffic on the Taipei-Mumbai route with its launch of direct flights to India's largest and most populous city.
India has become one of the most popular travel destinations for people in Taiwan, said Alok Dimri, vice chairman of the India-Taipei Association, at the press conference.
The association has issued 28,000 visas to Taiwanese travelers so far this year and expects to process another 2,000 before the end of this year.
In addition to Taiwanese tourists and Indians working in Taiwan, the flights will also serve business passengers transiting from North America, whom the airline expects to fill half the seats on the route, Nieh said.
EVA Airways has adjusted the schedules of some of its flights from Los Angeles and San Francisco to shorten the Taipei transit time for Mumbai-bound passengers to about two hours, he said.
EVA Airways launched a cargo service between Taipei and Mumbai in 1999, followed by Taipei-New Delhi cargo flights in 2003.
China Airlines (
RECYCLE: Taiwan would aid manufacturers in refining rare earths from discarded appliances, which would fit the nation’s circular economy goals, minister Kung said Taiwan would work with the US and Japan on a proposed cooperation initiative in response to Beijing’s newly announced rare earth export curbs, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. China last week announced new restrictions requiring companies to obtain export licenses if their products contain more than 0.1 percent of Chinese-origin rare earths by value. US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Wednesday responded by saying that Beijing was “unreliable” in its rare earths exports, adding that the US would “neither be commanded, nor controlled” by China, several media outlets reported. Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato yesterday also
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) said it expects peak season effects in the fourth quarter to continue to boost demand for passenger flights and cargo services, after reporting its second-highest-ever September sales on Monday. The carrier said it posted NT$15.88 billion (US$517 million) in consolidated sales last month, trailing only September last year’s NT$16.01 billion. Last month, CAL generated NT$8.77 billion from its passenger flights and NT$5.37 billion from cargo services, it said. In the first nine months of this year, the carrier posted NT$154.93 billion in cumulative sales, up 2.62 percent from a year earlier, marking the second-highest level for the January-September
‘DRAMATIC AND POSITIVE’: AI growth would be better than it previously forecast and would stay robust even if the Chinese market became inaccessible for customers, it said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its full-year revenue growth outlook after posting record profit for last quarter, despite growing market concern about an artificial intelligence (AI) bubble. The company said it expects revenue to expand about 35 percent year-on-year, driven mainly by faster-than-expected demand for leading-edge chips for AI applications. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker in July projected that revenue this year would expand about 30 percent in US dollar terms. The company also slightly hiked its capital expenditure for this year to US$40 billion to US$42 billion, compared with US$38 billion to US$42 billion it set previously. “AI demand actually
Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), founder and CEO of US-based artificial intelligence chip designer Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Friday celebrated the first Nvidia Blackwell wafer produced on US soil. Huang visited TSMC’s advanced wafer fab in the US state of Arizona and joined the Taiwanese chipmaker’s executives to witness the efforts to “build the infrastructure that powers the world’s AI factories, right here in America,” Nvidia said in a statement. At the event, Huang joined Y.L. Wang (王英郎), vice president of operations at TSMC, in signing their names on the Blackwell wafer to
RSS