Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) is to lease six A321neo aircraft as it eyes expansion amid a tourism boom.
The airline plans to spend about NT$2.16 billion (US$67.51 million) on each of the first three planes, which would be leased from GY Aviation Lease 2405 Co, Starlux said in a statement.
The price of the other three planes is still being negotiated and would be disclosed after an agreement is signed, it said.
Photo: CNA
A Starlux prospectus posted in June on the Taiwan Stock Exchange said that as of the end of May, the airline had a fleet of 22 passenger planes — 13 A321neos, five A350-900s and four A330neos.
The airline is expected to take delivery of an additional five planes by the end of this year to boost its fleet to 27, the prospectus said.
The airline would introduce its first A350-1000 aircraft next year to serve long-haul routes to the US, it said.
Starlux launched direct flights between Taipei and Seattle on Friday. The airline also flies to Los Angeles and San Francisco in the US, which are among more than 20 destinations overall, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan and Hong Kong.
On Oct. 27, the airline is to launch daily flights between Taichung and Phu Quoc Island in Vietnam on its A321neo planes.
Next month, it is to begin five weekly flights between Taipei and Jakarta, also on the A321neos.
With a resurgence in tourism following the end of COVID-19 restrictions, Starlux posted NT$900 million in net profit in the first half of this year, up 172 percent from a year earlier. Earnings per share were NT$0.39 in the period, up NT$0.21 from a year earlier.
The carrier’s consolidated sales for the first six months surged 65 percent from a year earlier to NT$16.33 billion.
Last month, Starlux posted NT$3.47 billion in consolidated sales, up 53 percent from a year earlier and 13 percent from a month earlier to set a new high for the month.
Revenue from its passenger flight operations was about NT$3.03 billion last month and the company posted NT$301 million in sales from its cargo flights, up 122 percent from a year earlier, largely due to demand for transportation of gadgets related to an artificial intelligence boom.
At an annual meeting in June, Starlux chairman Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒) said that the carrier aimed to eliminate its cumulative losses of more than NT$11.5 billion in three years.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
Taiwan’s long-term economic competitiveness will hinge not only on national champions like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) but also on the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, a US-based scholar has said. At a lecture in Taipei on Tuesday, Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science at the George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers," argued that historical experience shows that general-purpose technologies (GPTs) — such as electricity, computers and now AI — shape long-term economic advantages through their diffusion across the broader economy. "What really matters is not who pioneers
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
RSS