TransAsia Airways Corp (復興航空), a Taiwanese carrier focusing on regional passenger routes in Asia, expects revenue next year to grow 30 percent from a year earlier, as it continues to launch new routes, a company official said yesterday.
Sales could surpass NT$10 billion (US$343.6 million) next year, marking the highest in the company’s history. The airline posted NT$8.74 billion in revenue last year.
In the first 11 months of the year, TransAsia posted sales of NT$8.68 billion, up 8.29 percent from a year earlier, company data showed.
“TransAsia is entering an expansion period,” chief commercial officer Chooi Yee-choong (徐以聰), who joined the management team in the middle of last month, told a media briefing.
The airline welcomed its first A330-300 aircraft last month, with the plane set to make its maiden flight from Taipei to Singapore on Dec. 30, Chooi said.
After taking delivery of its second A330-300 aircraft from France-based Airbus SAS next month, TransAsia is looking to launch more regional services in Asia next year, he added.
The carrier is looking to open routes to Bangkok and Tokyo, Chooi said, adding that at least one new route would be launched in the first half of next year.
TranAsia hopes to commence flights between Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Tokyo’s Narita International Airport in the near future, he said.
It may also consider launching flights between Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) and Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, he added.
For its current operational routes — to Macau, South Korea, Singapore, China and Japan — Chooi said the carrier hoped to increase its flight frequency if it could obtain additional quotas.
Chooi was optimistic about revenue growth momentum in the current quarter amid the increase in capacity, saying sales were in line with company expectations.
“The fourth quarter is not bad ... year-end demand is holding up well,” he said.
The airline also unveiled its early bird offers for budget travelers in the Asia-Pacific region, part of its strategy to expand its market share.
The special promotions are only available online and applicable between March and October next year. They cannot be used during the summer break, the Tomb-Sweeping Festival in early April and the Mid-Autumn Festival in late September, it added.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) shares yesterday notched their best two-day rally on record, as investors flock to the Taiwanese chip designer on excitement over its tie-up with Google. The Taipei-listed stock jumped 8.59 percent, capping a two-session surge of 19 percent and closing at a fresh all-time high of NT$1,770. That extended a two-month rally on growing awareness of MediaTek’s work on Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs), which are chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. It also highlights how fund managers faced with single-stock limits on their holding of market titan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are diversifying into other AI-related firms.
RSS