Singaporean low-cost airline Scoot is scheduled to debut in Taiwan today, becoming the 10th budget carrier in the market.
The inaugural flight will depart from Singapore at 1:05am and arrive in Taipei at 5:40am. The Singapore-Taipei service will operate every Tuesday and on weekends until Oct. 28. After that, daily flight services will be offered until March 30 next year.
Another Singaporean low-cost carrier, Tiger Airways, currently operates in Taiwan, while Peach Aviation of Japan is set to launch services next month.
Budget airlines have burgeoned in Taiwan in the three years since Jetstar Asia launched a Taipei route in 2004, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said.
Budget airlines now take up about 3 percent of the market share in Taiwan and hold great potential for growth, a CAA study showed.
The real market they are eying is the one across the Taiwan Strait and they are likely to enter into partnerships with Taiwanese carriers, the CAA said.
During a recent visit to Taiwan, senior executives of Malaysia’s Air Asia expressed great interest in investing in the country, CAA Director-General Jean Shen (沈啟) said.
If foreign budget airlines enter into joint ventures with local carriers, the new companies will be permitted to operate flights from Taiwan to destinations in China that are open only to Taiwanese and Chinese airlines, Shen said.
The CAA is optimistic about low-cost carrier services because they can help boost the country’s economy and tourism, Shen said.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure
RSS