TransAsia Airways cuts fares for Taipei-Tainan

TransAsia Airways (復興航空) yesterday announced that it would start offering a 20 percent discount for travel between Taipei and Tainan beginning this Sunday to rival fares offered by the nation's bullet train service.

The unprecedented promotional fare applies to both online booking and ticket sales at airports, the air carrier said in a press release.

"The scheme will continue [for the foreseeable future]. We'll wait and see" how it goes, Janet So (湛華生), TransAsia Airways' public relations manager, said in a telephone interview.

TransAsia chose to slash rates on the Taipei-Tainan route, where it commands about 52 percent of the market with eight flights per day because the launch of the Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp's (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) bullet train had cut into its passenger load by 50 percent, she said.

Statistics showed that the number of passengers flying with TransAsia between Taipei and Tainan has dwindled from an average of 40,000 a month before the high-speed rail system started operations to between 20,000 and 25,000 now.

smaller planes

TransAsia has changed planes flying this route to smaller ones and hopes that the latest discount program could "help maintain the passenger load," So said.

Under the new scheme, the average fare on this route will be only NT$190 higher than that of the high-speed rail, but travel time would be a short 50 minutes compared with the bullet train's 90 minutes.

The other Taipei-Tainan route operator, Far Eastern Air Transport Corp (遠東航空), is scheduled to hold a cross-departmental meeting today in response to TransAsia's announcement, said Hanson Chang (張有朋), senior public relations manager.

To offset the impact of the high-speed rail's launch, the nation's four domestic air carriers have introduced different promotional programs to retain or lure back passengers.

online discounts

Far Eastern has decided to extend its online booking discounts, which had concluded at the end of this month, Chang said.

The program allows passengers to enjoy lower fares when flying on weekends and after 6pm on weekdays.

The four carriers -- TransAsia, Far Eastern, Mandarin Airlines (華信航空) and Uni Airways Corp (立榮航空) -- also started a joint operation program on the Taipei-Kaohsiung route on May 17.

The alliance makes plane tickets interchangeable at no additional cost to encourage the public to take planes.

But it has to compete with the high-speed rail's more frequent service, Chang said.

THSRC is scheduled to increase the frequency of departures in each direction from 31 to 41 this Sunday. The total number of daily flights on the Taipei-Kaohsiung route is 24.