Japanese budget carrier Peach Aviation is to resume flights to Taiwan from Sept. 16 after a 17-month service suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Peach said its services between Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Kansai International Airport, near Osaka, would be its second international flight resumption after the pandemic started to ease and countries increasingly opened their borders.
It last month announced the resumption of flights between Kansai and Incheon International Airport near Seoul.
Photo: Bloomberg
The carrier said that it would offer two round trips between Taoyuan and Kansai per week, adding that tickets went on sale on Friday.
Peach started serving the Taoyuan route in October 2012, after the company was established in March that year.
Before the pandemic, it served 10 routes to Taiwan, the highest number among the nations it serves. It suspended all its international routes on April 8, 2021, as passenger numbers plummeted.
Peach served routes from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport and Narita International Airport, Okinawa’s Naha Airport, Fukuoka Airport, Sendai Airport and New Chitose Airport on Hokkaido to Taoyuan.
It also served routes from Narita, Okinawa and Kansai to Kaohsiung International Airport.
Peach executive director and CEO Kenaki Mori said he hopes that Japanese would get the chance to travel to Taiwan via the airline’s Taoyuan-Kansai route, while Taiwanese can access Japan through that route.
He hopes people-to-people exchanges would become more convenient, he said.
Peach would gradually resume more international flights and expand its route network, aiming to become a bridge between Osaka and other destinations in Asia for the 2025 World Expo, which is scheduled to open in the Japanese city in April 2025.
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