EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) yesterday signed a NT$50 billion (US$1.6 billion) deal with Boeing Co to procure five new freight aircraft.
The Taiwanese carrier is expected to receive the first of five Boeing 777 Freighters in October 2017 and have all five in operation by September 2019, EVA Air chairman Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒) said.
The 777 Freighter uses about 20 percent less fuel than the older Boeing 747-400 cargo aircraft in the company’s fleet, Chang said.
Photo: EPA
He said that it is crucial for the company to modernize its fleet, as the cargo sector is beset by dwindling margins and declining transport volume.
“The Boeing 747-400 is no longer the ideal choice, as there is no longer enough demand to fill it to capacity on each flight,” Chang said, adding that the 777 Freighter’s smaller capacity of 85 to 90 tonnes affords much more flexibility.
The new aircraft also shares many characteristics with other 777 series aircraft in EVA Air’s fleet, which will allow pilots to easily switch between flying cargo and passenger aircraft and simplify maintenance, he said.
EVA Air also plans to purchase 24 to 26 passenger aircraft in 2018 or 2019, which is expected to be one of the carrier’s largest procurement bids ever, Chang said.
The company is considering the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A350, and has urged Boeing senior vice president John Wojick to provide a more “friendly” price in the upcoming purchase, he said.
In light of the carrier’s lengthy history with Boeing aircraft powered by General Electric Co (GE) engines, Chang said that the 787 would be the ideal choice, as the A350 is powered by Rolls-Royce PLC engines, which would complicate maintenance.
Growth prospects are expected to be constrained for its maintenance business, he said.
“In terms of engine maintenance, many manufacturers are requiring clients to use their own first-party services or risk having their warranties voided, leaving other operators out of the picture,” Chang said.
Evergreen Aviation Precision Corp (EGAP, 長榮航與精密), an affiliated business of EVA Airways, has started shipments of its rigid cargo barriers for Boeing freight aircraft and has delivered 11 units since December last year as part of a contract that runs through 2019, he said.
GE awarded EGAP a six-year contract to supply 45 parts for the US company’s next-generation LEAP (leading-edge aviation propulsion) engine, he added.
Chang said the Taiwanese firm is striving to establish a vertically integrated aviation supply chain, aiming to tap into the market for aircraft parts assembly.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
New vehicle sales in Taiwan plunged about 37 percent sequentially last month as the long Lunar New Year holiday and 228 Peace Memorial Day holiday cut short the number of working days, along with the lingering uncertainty over import tax cuts on US vehicles, market researcher U-Car said in a report yesterday. New car sales last month totaled 22,043, slumping from 35,073 units in January and down 19.89 percent from 37,515 in February last year, U-Car data showed. Sales of imported luxury cars, led by Mercedes-Benz, plummeted about 45 percent to 3,109 units last month from 5,663 units in the previous month,
RSS