Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) plans to resume operations next month by offering three flights from Taiwan to Macau each week and one weekly flight to Penang, Malaysia, citing easing conditions amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The airline, which on Jan. 23 began operations by providing daily flights from Taiwan to Macau, Penang and Da Nang, Vietnam, canceled most of its flights in February and suspended operations completely in the middle of March as the novel coronavirus spread.
“As the pandemic has been gradually contained in Taiwan, we decided to reopen [services] phase by phase, starting with a few flights and likely increasing the scale based on the market situation,” Starlux general manager Glenn Chai (翟健華) told reporters in Taipei yesterday.
From June 1, Starlux is to offer three round-trip flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Macau International Airport each on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday, instead of its original schedule of three daily flights, Chai said.
It would also operate one round-trip flight from Taoyuan to Penang International Airport every Thursday, Chai said.
The airline expects businesspeople or officials attending public affairs conferences to be its first passengers, as they might still need to travel by air, Starlux spokesman Nieh Kuo-wei (聶國維) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
“Da Nang was not in the picture when we considered resumption, as most passengers to the city were tourists. We do not think that Taiwanese tourists are ready to travel overseas again, as the outbreak has not ended,” Nieh said.
Travelers to Macau and Penang would still need to undergo a 14-day quarantine after returning to Taiwan, as the Central Epidemic Command Center’s travel advisories for those two cities remains at a level 3 “warning,” he added.
The airline yesterday reopened its Web site to allow customers to buy tickets.
Starlux, which operates three narrow-body Airbus SE A321neo jets, said that it would cancel the middle seats in each row for the sake of social distancing, reducing the number of economy-class seats per aircraft from 188 to 127.
“The reduction in seats is unlikely to curb our revenue, as there would be a slim chance of full capacity based even on our most optimistic scenario,” Nieh said.
Starlux said that it is retaining its original plan of launching operations to new destinations — two second-tier cities in Southeast Asia and Japan — in the third and fourth quarters respectively.
Its goal of receiving another nine new A321neo aircraft next year remains unchanged, the airline said.
Taiwan will prioritize the development of silicon photonics by taking advantage of its strength in the semiconductor industry to build another shield to protect the local economy, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) said yesterday. Speaking at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee, Liu said Taiwan already has the artificial intelligence (AI) industry as a shield, after the semiconductor industry, to safeguard the country, and is looking at new unique fields to build more economic shields. While Taiwan will further strengthen its existing shields, over the longer term, the country is determined to focus on such potential segments as
UNCERTAINTY: Innolux activated a stringent supply chain management mechanism, as it did during the COVID-19 pandemic, to ensure optimal inventory levels for customers Flat-panel display makers AUO Corp (友達) and Innolux Corp (群創) yesterday said that about 12 to 20 percent of their display business is at risk of potential US tariffs and that they would relocate production or shipment destinations to mitigate the levies’ effects. US tariffs would have a direct impact of US$200 million on AUO’s revenue, company chairman Paul Peng (彭雙浪) told reporters on the sidelines of the Touch Taiwan trade show in Taipei yesterday. That would make up about 12 percent of the company’s overall revenue. To cope with the tariff uncertainty, AUO plans to allocate its production to manufacturing facilities in
COLLABORATION: Given Taiwan’s key position in global supply chains, the US firm is discussing strategies with local partners and clients to deal with global uncertainties Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) yesterday said it is meeting with local ecosystem partners, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), to discuss strategies, including long-term manufacturing, to navigate uncertainties such as US tariffs, as Taiwan occupies an important position in global supply chains. AMD chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) told reporters that Taiwan is an important part of the chip designer’s ecosystem and she is discussing with partners and customers in Taiwan to forge strong collaborations on different areas during this critical period. AMD has just become the first artificial-intelligence (AI) server chip customer of TSMC to utilize its advanced
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors