Evergreen Aviation Technologies Corp (EGAT, 長榮航太) plans to invest NT$370 million (US$12.09 million) building a new domestic plant primarily for repairing engine components to increase the firm’s efficiency, parent company EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) said on Thursday.
EGAT has signed a contract with Ever Accord Construction Corp (長友營造), an affiliate of Evergreen Group (長榮集團), which is to complete construction of the new plant by the end of next year, EVA spokesman David Chen (陳耀銘) told a news conference in Taipei.
The new three-story factory with total floor area of 13,495m2 is expected to start operations in early 2021, Chen said, adding that it would be built next to EGAT’s plant in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音區).
EGAT, a joint venture with General Electric Co (GE), is one of the nation’s leading aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul firms, which provides services for more than 40 airlines.
EVA holds an 80 percent stake in EGAT, while GE owns the remaining 20 percent.
EFFICIENCY BOOST
Engine maintenance plays an increasingly important role for EGAT as the high-value business accounts for 70 percent of its workload, with aircraft part repairs making up the remaining 30 percent, the company said.
However, EGAT currently cannot fix all the engine parts it receives, so it often has to send parts to the GE in the US to have them fixed, it said.
“The process usually takes three months. We hope to advance our ability and be licensed by GE to repair more parts in the new plant, so we can save time and money, and boost our efficiency,” Chen said.
EGAT declined to elaborate on which components it would aim to fix or which local engine suppliers it has partnerships with, telling the Taipei Times that it would focus on the parts with higher margins and that it is “open-minded” when looking for business partners.
The new factory is expected to help EGAT become an “one stop” workshop and gain more business opportunities, Chen said.
RECRUITMENT
Asian low-cost carriers have created momentum for the aircraft maintenance industry and EGAT would be aiming to get more orders from the budget airlines, he said.
The firm, which has 3,600 employees, said that it might consider recruiting more once the expansion plan has been completed.
EGAT posted a net profit of NT$1.09 billion in the first half of this year, down 14.8 percent year-on-year, company data showed.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by