EVA Airways Corp (EVA, 長榮航空), the nation’s second-largest airline, yesterday announced plans to add seven more of Boeing Co’s 777-300ER aircraft to its fleet to replace its B747-series airplanes and pursue greater energy efficiency.
The air carrier signed a US$930 million contract with Boeing to purchase three new B777-300ERs and inked an agreement to lease the remaining four planes from GE Capital Aviation Services Ltd, a commercial aircraft financing and leasing unit of General Electric Corp.
Deliveries are set to start in June 2014 and be completed by June 2016.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
“Deployment of the additional seven of these aircraft and gradual replacement of our other aircraft types will standardize our fleet and give us greater operational flexibility,” EVA president Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒) said at the signing ceremony.
EVA is a launch customer for the B777-300ER, Chang said. The air carrier operates 15 B777-300ER aircraft on its long-haul routes.
Compared with the B747-series aircraft, the B777-300ER consumes 22 percent less fuel, reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 22 percent and costs up to 20 percent less to operate, Chang said, citing analyses from Boeing.
Following the delivery of the new aircraft, EVA will gradually replace the operations of its B747 series fleet, Chang said, adding that the introduction of new planes will improve the company’s profitability.
Other than passenger jets, EVA will also move ahead with its plans to purchase cargo freighters after seeing some recovery in the cargo business, to replace its old cargo aircraft, Chang said.
EVA has so far divested itself of two of its six MD-series freighters this year and is expected to sell the other four by the end of this year.
Although the price of Brent crude oil fell 5.28 percent to US$113.18 a barrel at the Monday close from a week earlier, the airline sector continues to face the challenge of high jet fuel prices this year, which dragged down carriers’ profitability in the first quarter.
Aviation fuel prices may not reflect a recent downturn in crude oil prices right away, as it is set according to the average crude oil price from the previous month, Chang said.
However, Chang said the company is confident it would return to profit in the third quarter on the back of seasonal demand in the passenger business and will make efforts to break even for the first half of the year.
EVA reported NT$1.08 billion (US$36.77 million), or NT$0.33 per share, in net losses for the first quarter of the year, company financial data showed.
Meanwhile, Chang said he expects crude oil prices to continue their drop in the long term amid an increase in demand for alternative energy sources and falling demand for oil.
“In my opinion, a reasonable crude oil price is expected to fall at least to the level of US$80 a barrel,” Chang said.
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
RSS