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Taiwan's Top-2 Airlines Expand and Upgrade Fleets for New Flights

2014/06/05 | By Steve Chuang

With the global air travel market showing brighter skies this year than last year, Taiwan's top-2 airlines, China Airlines Ltd. and EVA Airways Corp. (EVA Air), are expanding and upgrading fleets, mainly preparing for new flights to China and North America, respectively.

To cope with more flights from Taiwan to smaller cities in China, China Airlines plans to introduce three new Boeing 737-800 narrow-body jets this year, with the first already delivered this March, and another to be delivered in June, bringing such aircraft in its fleet to 16 by the end of this year when the three newly delivered planes will lift off.

China Airlines's chairman, H.H. Sun, noted that the three new aircrafts are mainly to fly to China, with four new routes from Taiwan to Hebei, Xuzhou, Changchun and Yantai to start  in July.

Noteworthy is that the new aircrafts will be equipped with the latest in-flight entertainment system from Panasonic, WiFi and Seat Chat, a seat-to-seat chat platform, to create better passenger experience.

This year, the airline will add seven new airplanes to its fleet, including the three said planes with three Boeing 777-300ER and one Airbus A330-300 wide-body, twin-engine jets, to bring its total aircraft number to 83.

China Airlines just struck a deal in late May with a U.S.-based aircraft operator, Air Lease Corporation, to lease three Boeing 737-800 aircrafts, which will land in Taiwan continually next year through 2016. The firm is expanding its Boeing 737-800 fleet to achieve its ambition to explore the market in East Asia, given that the plane is short-to-medium-range, perfect for flying between Taiwan and nearby countries.

Coincidentally, EVA Air has decided to introduce three Boeing B777-300ER long-range planes, along with six Airbus A321-200 narrow-body planes, this year as well, mainly for weekly flights added from Taiwan to Vancouver, Toronto and Los Angeles.

EVA Air is also upgrading hardware and software on its newly bought airplanes. According to K.W. Chang, EVA Air's president, the three new Boeing 777-300ER planes, two already received in late May, have lots of features to attract passengers, especially young people, including an improved cabin environment, in-flight WiFi and SMS services, Rimowa amenity kits, high-quality headphones, and so forth.

Chang stated earlier that his company is optimistic to achieve better performance than last year, primarily for its passenger load factor for routes to Japan, Europe, America and Southeast Asia so far has remained 90%, 85%, 80% and nearly 80%, respectively. (SC)

China Airlines and EVA Air Fleet Expansion Plan for 2014
Company

Aircrafts

China Airlines Ltd.

3 Boeing B737-800 narrow-body jets

3 Boeing B777-300ER wide-body twin-engine jets

1 Airbus 330-300 wide-body twin-engine jets

EVA Airways Corp.

3 Boeing B777-300ER wide-body twin-engine jets

6 Airbus A321-200 narrow-body jets