Starting next month, Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) is to increase its number of flights to Macau and Penang, Malaysia, to meet rising air cargo demand and help its pilots build up flight hours, the airline said yesterday.
From Aug. 1, Starlux is to offer four round-trip flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Macau International Airport every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, compared with three per week now, it said in a statement.
It would also operate three round-trip flights per week from Taoyuan to Penang International Airport every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, from two at present, it said.
Photo courtesy of StarLux Airlines
Although air travel is unlikely to rebound quickly in the third quarter as the COVID-19 pandemic shows no signs of slowing, Starlux decided to expand its operations on expectations that the air cargo business would remain rosy, spokesman Nieh Kuo-wei (聶國維) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
The airline, which was struck by the pandemic after beginning operations on Jan. 23, has been concentrating on cargo services between Taiwan and Macau and Penang to mitigate the effects of a faltering passenger business amid travel restrictions.
“Frankly speaking, we would operate the flights even without any passenger, as the cargo revenue would be enough to cover variable costs,” Nieh said.
However, Starlux has yet to resume its operations to Da Nang, as Vietnam has not eased its restrictions on air travel and cargo demand is low, he said.
Starlux also wants its pilots to accumulate more flight hours, which would give it an advantage when applying to the Civil Aeronautics Administration to launch new flights, Nieh said.
In related news, EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) yesterday said it is likely to increase its flights in the third quarter, as many countries ease border controls.
“We adjust our flight schedules on a rolling basis depending on the pandemic, official measures and consumer demand,” it said.
In the short term, domestic air travel would continue to outperform international travel, as a mandatory 14-day quarantine for returning citizens has dampened desire to travel abroad, it said.
As EVA lends its planes to Uni Air (立榮航空), which has been increasing its flights to outlying islands due to high demand, it also benefits from the domestic travel boost, it said.
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
Pegatron Corp (和碩), a key assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhones, on Thursday reported a 12.3 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for last quarter to NT$257.86 billion (US$8.44 billion), but it expects revenue to improve in the second half on traditional holiday demand. The fourth quarter is usually the peak season for its communications products, a company official said on condition of anonymity. As Apple released its new iPhone 17 series early last month, sales in the communications segment rose sequentially last month, the official said. Shipments to Apple have been stable and in line with earlier expectations, they said. Pegatron shipped 2.4 million notebook
RSS