China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) said that is planning to resume flights to London in the fourth quarter of this year.
The airline said it plans to relaunch the Taipei-London route and provide better services to its passengers after the delivery of new Airbus A350 jets later this year.
The airline suspended the route at the end of March 2012 as the load factor remained low at no more than 60 percent.
However, after Britain in June last year voted to leave the EU, which created uncertainty over the nation’s economy and sent the British pound into a tailspin, many Taiwanese have shown an interest in visiting the UK to take advantage of the favorable exchange rate, the company said.
Online searches for tours in the UK by Taiwanese have risen by about 50 percent, according to travel Web site Skyscanner.
CAL said it has sent a delegation to London to survey the market in preparation for the relaunch.
The airline shares codes with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines to transport passengers to Amsterdam and transit them to London or Manchester.
Code sharing with KLM will continue after CAL resumes direct flights to London, said Pan Yung-hao (潘允浩), a manager at CAL’s marketing division for its European operations.
CAL last year received four A350s and it is to receive six more by the end of this year.
The new aircraft will likely be used to carry passengers to London, said Peng Pao-chu (彭寶珠), a manager at CAL’s passenger flight services division.
The new planes will reduce the average age of the airline’s fleet to 3.6 years, in line with CAL’s progressive fleet revitalization strategy, the airline said.
Peng said that CAL has been engaged in talks with British aviation authorities to decide whether its planes will land at Heathrow Airport or Gatwick Airport.
Meanwhile, EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) will launch daily direct flights from Taipei to Toronto and Vancouver starting in the middle of June to meet increasing demand, the airline said on Wednesday last week.
Daily flights to Vancouver are to start on June 15 and to Toronto on June 16, the airline told a news conference in Toronto.
Taiwan and Canada have seen an increase in the number of travelers from both sides since the two nations signed a visa-free travel agreement in 2010, Representative to Canada Catherine Hsu (徐詠梅) told the news conference.
The number of Canadians visiting Taiwan surpassed 100,000 last year, up 17 percent from 2015, while 93,000 Taiwanese visited Canada last year, an increase of 31 percent from a year earlier, Hsu said.
LOOKING TO GROW: A survey showed that 71 percent of executives at chipmakers said that they aim to increase their global workforce this year An overwhelming majority of semiconductor executives expect revenue to grow this year, driven mainly by automotive applications that are putting wireless communications to the backseat, a survey released yesterday by global consultancy firm KPMG showed. Eighty-one percent of respondents said that their company’s revenue would increase over the next year, and half of them said they expect growth of more than 10 percent, the survey of 151 global semiconductor executives last quarter showed. Although lower than last year’s 95 percent and 68 percent respectively, the findings are encouraging in light of recent economic uncertainty, inflation, monetary tightening and geopolitical tensions, a KPMG
TAKING OFF: Net profit soared 29.5 percent annually last year to a record NT$15.37 billion, as GlobalWafers received record-high prepayments from customers, it said Semiconductor inventory corrections should end next quarter, paving the way for a pickup in demand in the second half of this year, GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓) said yesterday. As a majority of its customers believe demand would bounce back in the second half, the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer maker said it is keeping most of its factories fully utilized to ensure sufficient supply. “Our customers have committed to take those wafers. They only requested to push back shipments by a month or two,” GlobalWafers chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) told an investors’ teleconference. “Overall industry inventory adjustment should be mostly resolved in the second
The London Metal Exchange (LME) discovered bags of stones instead of the nickel that underpinned a handful of its contracts at a warehouse in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in a revelation that would deliver another blow to confidence in the embattled exchange. The amount of metal represents just 0.14 percent of live nickel inventories on the LME, worth about US$1.3 million at current prices, so the immediate effect on the metals markets is limited. However, the shock announcement has much wider implications. In an industry riddled with scandals, the LME’s contracts are viewed as unquestionably safe. The news that even a few of
Oil on Friday posted its worst weekly loss since the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic as banking turmoil poisoned investor sentiment. West Texas Intermediate for April delivery dropped 2.36 percent to US$66.74 per barrel, falling 12.96 percent for the week, the largest drop in almost three years. Brent crude for May delivery fell 2.32 percent to US$72.97, posting a weekly loss of 11.85 percent. The failure of Silicon Valley Bank and troubles at Credit Suisse Group AG drove investors from risk assets, with oil-options covering accelerating the sell-off. “Crude action this week reminded many of how quickly the commodity can be decimated by
RSS