V Air (威航), TransAsia Airways Corp’s (復興航空) budget carrier, yesterday announced that it has signed an in-flight franchise agreement with the US-based DFASS Group, a leading duty-free travel retailer.
The DFASS Group cooperates with 28 airlines worldwide, including Singapore Airlines, Garuda Indonesia and low-cost carrier Scoot Airlines.
“We expect the partnership with the DFASS Group to add value to V Air’s operations, leading growth in duty-free shopping to become the carrier’s key ancillary revenue channel,” V Air chief executive operator Eleni Lung (隆章琪) said in a statement.
V Air is in the process of obtaining approval from aviation authorities ahead of its launch, scheduled to take place later this year.
The new carrier plans to fly with a brand-new fleet of Airbus SAS 320s and 321s and is targeting a number of cities in Northeast and Southeast Asia as potential destinations for its routes.
Elsewhere in the aviation sector, China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空), the nation’s largest carrier, yesterday said that it is planning to recruit more than 600 employees, including 150 flight attendants.
Along with its revamped workforce, CAL is to introduce a new Airbus A330 series aircraft, as well as three Boeing Co 738s and three B777 planes by the end of the year.
The company’s budget airline carrier, Tigerair Taiwan (台灣虎航) — a joint venture between CAL and Tiger Airways Pte of Singapore — said earlier this year that it is planning to hire 180 employees.
In the first four months of the year, CAL posted consolidated revenue of NT$47.33 billion (US$1.56 billion), an increase of 6.44 percent from a year ago.
EVA Airways Corp (EVA, 長榮航空), the nation’s second-largest carrier, reported that its revenue increased by 4.15 percent to NT$40.28 billion over the same period, while TransAsia recorded an annual rise in revenue of 8.03 percent to NT$4.1 billion in the first four months of this year, according to statistics provided by the companies.
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Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
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
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