Tigerair Taiwan Ltd (台灣虎航) plans to expand its fleet, company spokesman Bernard Hsu (許致遠) said yesterday.
The fleet expansion would help the carrier obtain faster growth, Hsu said, but added that it has not finalized the details of the plan, such as the number of aircraft to be purchased.
The carrier would not hire new pilots or flight attendants this year until the expansion plan is confirmed, he told the Taipei Times by telephone.
Tigerair Taiwan, a low-cost carrier subsidiary of China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), last month added 60 new ground staff based at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport after signing a ground-work contract with South Korea-based Jeju Air Co Ltd in December last year, raising the total number of its ground staff to 220.
“Following the deal with Jeju Air, we have to expand our headcount for heavier workload,” Hsu said.
Tigerair Taiwan is still negotiating contracts with other foreign airlines and is confident that it will sign some agreements, he said.
The airline has assisted Singapore-based Jetstar Asia Airways Pte and Japan-based Jetstar Japan Co with ground work for years.
Hsu declined to reveal the value of the contract with Jeju Air, saying only that new contracts would benefit the firm’s revenue and profit.
A job ad to recruit ground staff last month attracted 3,000 applicants, as it is a popular job with lower requirements compared with flight attendants, Hsu said.
However, the turnover rate for ground staff is high, as many see the position a stepping stone, he added.
Tigerair Taiwan is pursuing an initial public offering for listing on the main board next year at the earliest, Hsu said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”