EVA Airways Corp (EVA, 長榮航空) president Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒) said yesterday that sentiment in the aviation cargo sector this year is the worst he has ever seen since he entered the market, evidence that demand would remain weak in the fourth quarter.
“Previously, demand from the US and Europe continued more or less until New Year’s Eve, even with a slowing global economy, but I have not seen any [demand] this year,” Chang told reporters after the air carrier held a press conference showcasing a special flight for Major League Baseball players, who are coming to Taiwan for a series of exhibition games next month.
Although increasing supply would be a factor driving up pricing pressure in the cargo sector, weak demand remains the biggest problem for the industry, Chang said.
Photo courtesy of EVA Airways Corp
Because of slowing economies in the US and Europe, EVA’s freight volume has shrunk quickly since August, Chang said, adding that demand may remain weak into next year.
The nation’s second-largest air carrier has a strategy to accelerate the pace in which it disposes of old aircraft and it is delaying orders for new planes to lower costs, Chang said.
“The company plans to sell three MD-11 freighters by the end of the year,” he said.
Chang said demand in the passenger sector remained strong this year, with the loading factor for European routes higher than expected at 85 percent following the eurozone approving visa-free entry for Taiwanese travelers.
The momentum on cross-strait routes also remains strong, mostly on demand from business clients, he added.
However, the passenger sector usually starts slowing six months after demand in the cargo sector drops, Chang said, adding that the company would carefully monitor the market.
EVA reported NT$8.26 billion (US$274.19 million) in revenues last month, down 7.19 percent from a year earlier and 12.13 percent lower than the previous month, the company’s data showed.
Revenues in the cargo sector fell 20.52 percent from a year earlier to NT$2.88 billion, while passenger revenue was up 5.28 percent year-on-year at NT$4.87 billion, the data showed.
The carrier’s shares rose 3.55 percent to NT$20.4 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
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
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the