China Airlines Ltd’s (CAL, 中華航空) profit dropped to its lowest level in five quarters as fuel cost increases offset revenue gains for Taiwan’s largest carrier.
Net income fell to NT$588 billion (US$20 million) in the three months ended Dec. 31, from NT$1.18 billion a year earlier. Fourth-quarter profit, derived from the full-year earnings reported by the Taoyuan-based company yesterday, lagged behind the NT$3.12 billion average of eight analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
The carrier may add “readily available” planes that are more fuel-efficient, CAL chairman Chang Chia-juch (張家祝) said on March 10, in response to this year’s 28 percent jump in jet fuel costs, its biggest expense. Surging fuel costs may undermine airlines’ profit industrywide this year, the International Air Transport Association said last month.
“The rise in fuel prices is continuing,” said Stone Lin (林溢錤), a Taipei-based analyst at Yuanta Securities Co (元大證券), who has a “sell” rating on the stock. “When oil prices are on the rise, airlines will be pressured by increasing costs.”
CAL fell 0.9 percent to NT$16.95 at the 1:30pm close in Taipei trading, before the earnings announcement. The shares have dropped 34 percent this year, compared with a 3.2 percent decline in the benchmark TAIEX.
Net income was NT$10.6 billion, or NT$2.29 per share, for the 12 months ended Dec. 31, compared with a loss of NT$3.8 billion a year earlier, ending a three-year streak of losses, the carrier said in a statement.
Separately, CAL’s board of directors yesterday approved a plan to sell NT$6 billion in five-year secured bonds at an interest rate of 1.35 percent to help repay debt, the carrier said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS