China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) yesterday said it has fully recovered from the losses stemming from a flight attendants’ strike in June and outlined plans to revitalize its business.
“Our overall passenger load factor reached 81.2 percent in July and 82.6 percent last month,” CAL chairman Ho Nuan-hsuan (何煖軒) told a news conference in Taipei.
Ho said the company is confident that its third-quarter earnings would top its domestic peers.
Photo: Kan Chi-chi, Taipei Times
“I do not have regrets about doing what had to be done,” Ho said, referring to the concessions he approved to end the strike.
“The concessions are in line with government regulations,” Ho said. “Those who participated in the strike are still my colleagues and it is vital to preserve amicable relations.”
Losses stemming from the one-day strike were estimated at NT$500 million (US$15.75 million), CAL said in June, adding that its annual payroll costs would increase by NT$550 million.
The nation’s largest carrier canceled 67 flights departing from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport or Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport), affecting an estimated 20,000 passengers.
Regarding the mounting losses incurred by Tigerair Taiwan (台灣虎航), a budget airline established with Singapore’s Tiger Airways Ltd, Ho said that the situation is dire.
“The problem stems from questionable contract terms with the Singaporean carrier, which were finalized by the previous management team,” Ho said.
“According to the contract, Tiger Airways, with its 10 percent stake in the venture, reserves the right to veto the decisions by the management team, leaving us with little room to operate,” Ho said.
The Singaporean carrier also said that two of the low-cost carrier’s fleet of nine aircraft may not be leased to other airlines, which limited the company’s asset utilization, he said.
“While we will try to salvage the company by renegotiating the contract with Tiger Airways, we do not rule out closing the low-cost carrier,” he said.
Ho also said that CAL is in talks with EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) about a partnership to pool resources and reduce costs by cutting redundant allocations.
CAL plans to cut unprofitable flights to improve operating efficiency and allow for more rest time for cabin crews, CAL president Hsieh Shih-chien (謝世謙) said.
The number of weekly flights to Japan have been reduced from 182 to 169, and the company is planning to add more flights to Thailand and Malaysia as part of the government’s “new southbound policy,” Hsieh said, adding that a number of night flights have been canceled as well.
The carrier will deploy its new fleet of Airbus A350 jetliners to destinations such as Vienna, Rome, Frankfurt and Amsterdam, Hsieh said, adding that CAL will focus on high-quality, non-stop flights.
In the first half of this year, CAL’s net income fell by 56.37 percent annually to NT$1.29 billion, with earnings per share of NT$0.24, while sales fell by 5.4 percent annually to NT$68.83 billion.
The declines were due to difficult market conditions, a NT$217 million foreign-exchange loss and lost sales from the strike, CAL said.
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Micron Technology Inc is a driving force pushing the US Congress to pass legislation that would put new export restrictions on equipment its Chinese competitors use to make their chips, according to people familiar with the matter. A US House of Representatives panel yesterday was to vote on the “MATCH Act,” a bill designed to close gaps in restrictions on chipmaking equipment. It would also pressure foreign companies that sell equipment to Chinese chipmaking facilities to align with export curbs on US companies like Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc. The bill targets facilities operated by China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc
RSS