Staff reporterChina Airlines (CAL, 中華航空) has teamed up with Hainan Airlines (海南航空) to offer a joint mileage program effective yesterday. Frequent flyers on the two airlines will be able to accumulate and redeem points with both carriers, a company statement said yesterday.
The collaboration adds Hainan Airlines to CAL’s existing mileage program partners Delta Airlines (達美航空), Northwest Airlines, Czech Airlines, China Eastern Airlines (中國東方航空), Air China (中國國際航空) and China Southern Airlines (中國南方航空).
The state-run airline’s financial results for the first half of the year, released on Friday, showed its revenue came in at NT$63.4 billion (US$2 billion) while net losses reached NT$6.53 billion, or NT$1.46 per share.
Meanwhile, CAL flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Phuket, Thailand, resumed yesterday.
There were 155 passengers on board flight CI645 to Phuket International Airport, said Annie Huang (黃明元), general manager of CAL’s media affairs department.
The plane returned home last night with 143 passengers, including 20 people stranded by political demonstrations in Phuket over the weekend.
Phuket International Airport (HKT), Thailand’s second-busiest airport, was shut down on Friday by anti-government demonstrators. It reopened on Sunday.
“Only one China Airlines flight was affected by HKT’s two-day shutdown,” Huang said.
CAL’s stock closed down 4.65 percent or NT$0.50 to NT$10.25 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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