Tigerair Taiwan (台灣虎航), a budget airline joint venture between Taiwan’s China Airlines (CAL, 中華航空) and Singapore’s Tiger Airways, said on Thursday it will launch its maiden flight to Singapore late next month.
Tigerair said on Facebook that it will take delivery of its first aircraft early next month in preparation for the launch of a daily round-trip flight to Singapore later in the month.
Budget carriers already operating on the Taiwan-Singapore route are Tiger Airways, Jetstar and Scoot, while legacy carriers on the route are CAL, EVA Airways (長榮航空) and Singapore Airlines.
PASSENGER LOAD
Their average passenger load in summer is 90 percent, according to industry sources.
Tigerair Taiwan, the country’s first low-cost airline, said it will release more information next week about its flights.
It had said earlier that it was also considering including destinations such as Macau, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea in its initial flight network.
In December last year, CAL and Tiger Airways agreed to set up Tigerair Taiwan to tap into the budget airline business. CAL holds a 90 percent stake with an investment of NT$1.8 billion (US$59.62 million) in the new carrier, which has paid-in capital of NT$2 billion.
V AIR PLAN
Meanwhile, V Air (威航), which was established in November last year as a low-cost subsidiary of Taiwan’s TransAsia Airways Corp (復興航空), said it is likely to stick to its plan to start operations in the fourth quarter of this year.
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