EVA Airways Corp (EVA, 長榮航空), the nation’s second-largest air carrier, has high hopes of getting permission this year to fly through China’s airspace to help save fuel costs, although there are still some hurdles to overcome, a company official said yesterday.
The air carrier is also hoping Taiwan will become a major transit center for Chinese tourists, the official said.
“We hope the government will speed up negotiations with China so that we can see some big breakthroughs on these two issues by the end of the year,” EVA president Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒) told a media briefing.
QUOTA INCREASE
Chang said President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) re-election would help maintain a stable relationship between Taiwan and China, further boosting the possibility of increased cross-strait flights from the current quota of 558 a week.
For long-distance flights, such as routes to Paris and New York from Taiwan, getting permission to fly through China’s airspace could help local carriers save fuel costs, Chang said.
“Taking EVA’s Taipei-Paris route as an example, flying through China’s airspace could take 30 minutes off the flight time and save the company NT$100 million [US$3.39 million] a year,” Chang said, adding that the move would be convenient for tourists, as well as more energy efficient.
In addition, Chang said Taiwan could become a major transit point for Chinese tourists if Beijing eases travel restrictions for those from second and third-tier cities so that they can transfer via Taiwan without having to obtain exit and entry permits.
EVA chairman James Jeng (鄭光遠) shared Chang’s thoughts.
“Currently, many Chinese tourists flying to the US choose to transfer through Seoul’s Incheon International Airport,” Jeng told reporters. “Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport should also play this role to drive up the airport’s passenger flow.”
Chang said he knows difficulties in cross-strait negotiations remain, as the Chinese government also hopes to gain favors from Taiwan in exchange for relaxing these policies.
However, even without these new initiatives, cross-strait routes are still expected to be the main driver for the company’s passenger business, Chang said, adding that revenue from the passenger sector could grow by about 10 percent this year.
SHIPPING INDUSTRY
Separately, Evergreen Group vice chairman Bronson Hsieh (謝志堅) said he expected the container shipping industry to rebound moderately this year amid improving freight rates.
Evergreen Group includes Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運), the nation’s largest container shipping firm in terms of fleet scale.
Hsieh said several global container shippers had cut freight rates in recent years to pursue greater market share, but had only eroded the industry’s profitability.
However, that trend began to change this year, Hsieh said, adding that major global container shippers recently reached a consensus to slow the growth in capacity supply and raise freight rates to help drive up profits.
RATE AGREEMENT
Last week, the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement (TSA), an Asia-based transpacific consortium with 15 member shippers, including Evergreen and Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運), announced an industry-wide rate increase for Asia-Europe routes next month.
The group also recommended rate increases next month for routes to the US’ west coast and to other US destinations in yearly contract negotiations in May.
“We see the TSA announcement as confirmation that carriers are determined to push freight rates back to break-even points,” Primasia Securities Co analyst Freddy Yam said in a note yesterday.
“While we view the TSA move as positive, the sustainability of any rate increases will require more aggressive capacity idling by the industry because container capacity is expected to accelerate this year and next, outpacing estimated growth in demand,” Yam said.
Additional reporting by Kevin Chen
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained