China Airlines (CAL), the nation’s largest carrier, said yesterday it would begin all-cargo flight services between Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and the Chinese cities of Xiamen, Nanjing and Fuzhou this month to meet rising demand from China.
CAL will launch a weekly all-cargo flight between Taiwan and Xiamen, Fujian Province, today and a flight to Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, next Saturday, the company said.
10 PER WEEK
The carrier will also begin a twice-weekly service to Fuzhou, Fujian Province, before the end of this month, which will bring its total weekly cargo flights between the two countries to 10 a week. Two more flights are planned to unspecified destinations in the future.
The cargo flights to Xiamen and Nanjing will operate every Saturday and the two flights per week to Fuzhou have been scheduled for every Wednesday and Saturday.
The Boeing 747-400F aircraft CAL will use on the routes will ship mainly electronic appliances, textile products and shoes, the company said.
A spokeswoman for the airline said CAL is expanding its cargo operations in China to take advantage of increasing demand, with its focus clearly on shipping goods out of what many consider the world’s factory.
Listed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as one of the world’s 10 biggest international cargo carriers, CAL currently operates cargo flights to Shanghai four times a week and to Guangzhou twice a week.
Since Taiwan and China opened direct air cargo links in August last year, CAL has transported about 56,000 tonnes of goods from China to Taiwan, accounting for 10 percent of the company’s total cargo shipments.
It has had an average load factor of 75 percent on its cargo flights connecting Taiwan and China.
EVA AIR
CAL’s chief rival, EVA Air, currently has four cargo flights a week between Taiwan and China — three to Shanghai and one to Guangzhou — according to a schedule on its Web site.
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