Taiwan's Two Leading Airlines Expand Flights to North America

Taiwan's two leading airline companies—China Airlines (CAL) and EVA Airways—are planning to boost their development of the North American market, with the former entering into cooperation with Virgin America to expand its destinations in the U.S. and the later planning to to open a new route to Houston, Texas on July 1, 2015.

Currently CAL has 31 flights a week to the North American destinations of Los Angel, San Francisco, New York, and Vancouver. The company has ordered 10 new Boeing 777 planes, three for delivery this year. The three new planes will start flying North America routes next year, initially replacing CAL's ageing Boeing 747s. All of the 10 777s are to be delivered by the end of 2016.

CAL recently went into cooperation with Virgin America, extending its route network to 17 new destinations in the U.S. including Dallas, Chicago, Newark, Washington D. C., Fort Lauderdale, Seattle, and Boston.

EVA offers even more flights to North America: 55 a week, to New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver, and Toronto. The new Houston destination will be added next July. (JL)