China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) and EVA Airways Corp (EVA, 長榮航空), the nation’s top two air carriers, will store some of their Boeing 747 cargo airplanes in the Californian desert, as the global economic downturn has caused cargo volume to fall significantly.
As the cargo load factor, a measure of how full airplanes are, has fallen to below 65 percent from 75 percent, CAL and EVA intend to store three and two Boeing 747 cargo planes in the desert, respectively, the first time the nation’s air carriers have decided to put planes in storage because of disappointing operating results.
Both carriers said they had yet to decide how long the cargo planes would be stored, but would immediately resume cargo services when the economy recovers and orders increase.
The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said it had not received the official applications from both companies, but would respect their decision.
To resume cargo services, CAA said both airlines would have to obtain its permission. For instance, a plane stored for 180 days will require a 100-hour inspection, while one stored for a year will need a one-month inspection.
Taiwanese carriers, which ship primarily high-tech and precision materials and products, have been struggling with declining cargo orders as global trade has droped amid the ongoing financial crisis.
CAA statistics showed that the nation’s air cargo volume had dropped to less than 100,000 tonnes in December, from a level of 150,000 tonnes per month in the past.
CAL, which owns the world’s largest fleet of Boeing 747 cargo aircraft, said nearly half of its revenues were generated from 20 cargo planes.
Revenues from cargo services reached NT$53.6 billion (US$1.57 billion) in 2007, it said.
CAL said its cargo volume dropped substantially in the fourth quarter of last year as it saw a yearly decrease of 50 percent in December, which worsened from a yearly decrease of 10 percent in September.
UNPRECEDENTED PACE: Micron Technology has announced plans to expand manufacturing capabilities with the acquisition of a new chip plant in Miaoli Micron Technology Inc unveiled a newly acquired chip plant in Miaoli County yesterday, as the company expands capacity to meet growing demand for advanced DRAM chips, including high-bandwidth memory chips amid the artificial intelligence boom. The plant in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), which Micron acquired from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion, is expected to make a sizeable capacity contribution to the company from fiscal 2028, the company said in a statement. It would be an extended production site of Micron’s large-scale manufacturing hub in Taichung, the company said. As the global semiconductor industry is racing to reach US$1 trillion
ABOVE LEGAL REQUIREMENT: The Ministry of Economic Affairs is prepared if LNG supply is disrupted, with more than the legal requirement of 11 days of inventory Taiwan has largely secured liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies through May and arranged about half of June’s supply, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. Since the Middle East conflict began on Feb. 28, Taiwan’s LNG inventories have remained more than 12 days, exceeding the legal requirement of 11 days, indicating no major supply concerns for domestic gas and electricity, Kung said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. The ministry aims to increase the figure to 14 days by the end of next year, he said. While one or two LNG or crude oil shipments for May
Taiwan’s food delivery market could undergo a major shift if Singapore-based Grab Holdings Ltd completes its planned acquisition of Delivery Hero SE’s Foodpanda business in Taiwan, industry experts said. Grab on Monday last week announced it would acquire Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations for US$600 million. The deal is expected to be finalized in the second half of this year, with Grab aiming to complete user migration to its platform by the first half of next year. A duopoly between Uber Eats and Foodpanda dominates Taiwan’s delivery market, a structure that has remained intact since the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) blocked Uber Technologies Inc’s
Memory chip stocks extended their losses yesterday after Alphabet Inc’s Google publicized research that could allow more efficient use of the storage needed for artificial intelligence (AI) development. SK Hynix Inc and Samsung Electronics Co, South Korean leaders in the market, fell more than 6 percent and about 5 percent respectively in Seoul. In the US, Micron Technology Inc, Western Digital Corp and Sandisk Corp slid more than 2 percent in pre-market trading, after they all closed lower on Wednesday. Memory companies have been on a tear in recent months as the rapid development of AI infrastructure triggered a spike in chip
RSS