EVA Airways (長榮航空) yesterday announced that it plans to launch a new flight service to Washington in July, making it the first Taiwanese carrier to provide direct flights to the US capital.
The airline plans to provide four flights to Washington in the initial stage using Boeing 787-9s, EVA Airways president Clay Sun (孫嘉明) told reporters in Taipei.
The airline aims to attract more passengers to North America with the new service, and provide a transit option to Washington for travelers from around the region, Sun said.
Photo: Taipei Times
Currently, they must transit in Japan, South Korea or China, he said.
Washington is the center of politics and the military in the US, and home to many tourist attractions, including the White House, the US Capitol Building, museums and cherry blossoms, he said.
Sixty percent of the travelers on the airline’s North America flights are transit passengers, Sun said.
The Washington area is home to about 14,000 Taiwanese and 320,000 residents of Southeast Asian descent, he added.
The new service is not being added due to political pressure, Sun said.
“When launching a new flight service, the company considers factors such as fleet size and effectiveness. We are using Boeing 787s for flights to Washington before we receive Airbus 350-1000s,” he said.
When asked whether the airline is considering offering flights to Boston or other cities on the US east coast, Sun said that might be difficult.
Once flights to Washington are launched, the airline would have passenger services to 10 destinations in North America, with 98 weekly flights to the region, he said.
He also outlined plans to increase the frequency of other routes.
Services to Milan, Italy, are expected to be increased to daily flights starting on Friday, while flights to Aomori, Japan, are to increase to five to seven flights per week from March 29, and services to Busan would be raised to 10 weekly flights between Feb. 23 and March 28, Sun said.
To meet demand during the Lunar New Year holiday and the spring travel season, flights to Da Nang, Vietnam, would be increased to 12 per week through March 8. Services to Matsuyama in Japan’s Ehime Prefecture would rise to five flights per week from March 17 to April 12, while 14 to 16 flights per week would be offered to Fukuoka, Japan, through March 28. Services to Incheon, South Korea, would be expanded from 14 to 18 weekly flights through April 12.
The airline has no plans to launch any other new routes at this time, although it is evaluating adding services to Spain, Helsinki and India, Sun said.
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