With the high-speed railway cutting into its passenger load, TransAsia Airways Corp (復興航空) announced yesterday that it would start offering a 50 percent discount for travel between Taipei and Kaohsiung beginning today.
TransAsia's fare of NT$1,090 for the Taipei-Kaohsiung route will be NT$400 lower than fares offered by the nation's bullet train service on the route, company public relations manager Janet So (湛華生) said by telephone last night.
The new price scheme with six flights per day will be lower than those of other domestic carriers, including Far Eastern Air Transport Corp (遠東航空), Mandarin Airlines (華信航空) and Uni Airways Corp (立榮航空), she said.
Unlike other carriers that only provide online booking discounts or offer discounts to travel agencies, TransAsia said its new fares will be available at all retail channels, as well as at its check-in counters at the airports.
She said the preferential fares will continue through the end of next month.
TransAsia now has less than 20 percent of the market for flights between Taipei and Kaohsiung and has seen its customer figures decrease since the launch of the bullet train.
The nation's carriers have introduced other promotional programs this year, but a proposed alliance among four carriers to make plane tickets interchangeable was aborted last month.
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