Taiwan's Budget Airlines' Market Share up to 6% in 2013

Last year Taiwan's 13 budget carriers took a 6% local market share, up one percentage point from 5% of a year earlier; and the number of such airlines on the island is expected to grow to 16 this year, according to the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA).

Two more budget airlines were established in the first couple months of this year, with one being V Air and the other Tiger Airways Taiwan. The former is an affiliate of TransAsia Airways, a Taiwanese airline and the latter a joint venture of China Airlines, Taiwan's flag carrier, and Singapore Tiger Airways. Both budget airlines will reportedly start services by the end of the year.

In addition, VietJet, Vietnam's second largest carrier and also a budget airline, plans to tap this market by flying from Taiwan's Taoyuan to Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City in the second half of the year, to raise the number of budget airlines in Taiwan to 16 this year.

Currently Taiwan's 13 budget airlines are mainly from Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and China to fly 20 international routes.

Undoubtedly budget flights have buoyed  Taiwan's airlines sector. The Singapore-based Jet Star is the first to fly budget flights to Taiwan in 2004, during which 500,000 passengers flew between Taoyuan and Singapore, and as many as one million by 2013.

In 2012 Taiwan and Japan signed an open sky agreement that raised the number of  passengers on the Taiwan-Osaka route for the year to 1.2145 million from 947,600 of a year earlier, which rose in 2013 by 43% to 1.7311 million with two budget carriers flying the  route. (JL)