✈ Airlines | StarLux

Though Miami airport is a nightmare,the destination would be a godsend for us Southbound folk.

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Look, this route was deemed by every airline NOT to work prepandemic, even with ultra-longhaul aircraft such as the 787 and the Airbus A350 at hand.

You are shiningly optimistic folks to think an Asia-to-Miami nonstop route would suddenly be workable now . . . :neutral_face:

Guy

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It’s gotten a lot better after the major renovation completed in 2015, and there’s a $5B overhaul in the works beginning next year. I fly out of MIA all the time and think it’s ok…not great but not a nightmare.

It’s not like I entirely disagree with you or anything (as in Miami-Asia nonstop may still be a number of years away) but the way you wrote this post is odd. Airports and routes are constantly growing and service areas expanding. It’s not “workable” until it is. MIA has multiple people on staff whose entire job is to negotiate with airlines to add new routes. Every new international route out of every mid-tier airport was not feasible until the day it was.

Now, there’s certainly lots of examples when a route is added and later removed, either due to incentives ending or poor performance. So you might say that MIA hasn’t yet even reached this intermediate step. But often when it is a ground-breaking “first” as this would be, it’s more of a hurdle to launch and less of an issue to maintain. Major incentives usually come from govt subsidies for routes connecting small communities with essential service…airport incentives are far less significant.

I went through Panama on my way south z not Miami.

They charge exorbitant prices for food at the airport. They must be doing well.

I guess Miami will be great if that’s final destination. But if only transit and onward bound it doesn’t really matter which airport does it.

For Latin America it’s a good airport for connections from US (I think that’s the reference to southbound); for other US destinations, TPE-MIA doesn’t seem great.

One final point about Miami as a viable new nonstop destination: it’s neither a government center nor a financial hub. It’d be a leisure-heavy destination (i.e. not huge opportunities for business class revenue).

So would cargo make it work? I’m not in the industry, and I have no idea about this. But I do think @projectmaximus point about constant expansion and growth of routes does need to be viewed against the severe impact of the COVID crisis on airlines, especially in Asia. Some notable recently launched ultra-longhaul routes have been suspended or axed (example: Cathay Pacific’s HKG-IAD route). In this environment, I’d be amazed if Miami was actually launched as a non-stop destination.

Guy

I never knew FB allowed that. Interesting ! So, that is how to become a social media star huh. Invest money in likes and hope you make a profit.

Look guys, the options for South America are really bleak. It is Taipei to Amsterdam Istanbul or South Africa, then maybe Panama or if you are lucky a direct flight to Brazil, then onward to Paraguay, Chile, Perú…

We are talking the usual flight is 3 jumps at least…over 32 hours of flight.

Two jumps sounds much, much better, especially for Taishen.

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I looked it up and found a flight to Sao Paolo from Taoyuan with a single stop in Instanbul

That’s 26 hours of flight

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Yes, covid is a wild card. But it should also be noted that 3 weeks ago, MIA had its second-busiest day ever. Not just the busiest day since covid, but second-busiest ever. It is expected to set the record once or twice during the Christmas/New Year holiday.

Well, if they have the route and at least use it once a week like China Airlines did with Palau I’m good.

Otherwise I was just looking at @Taiwan_for_Life thread. To get to the old country, that’s 27k for Emirates. Then the cheapest to the tropics from which I spawned is 15k. However, the Emirates flight is like 10 hours followed by 6 hours in Dubai. Then like another 8 hours to London. Then about half a day of flight. So total is 27hours more or less plus waiting times.

So, how’s the contagion situation in London?

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Well there it is. MIA sets its all time record for passengers in one day, and they say it will likely be broken within the next few weeks. Article also mentions that total seat capacity is up 19% compared to December of 2019, which jives with what I’ve been seeing with so many new routes having been added at MIA over the last 6 months or so.

StarLux has taken possession of its first Airbus A330neo. They are the first airline in Taiwan, I think, to acquire this aircraft. It’s expected to be used on flights to and from Bangkok and Singapore.

Guy

Can they carry cargo on that plane?

I am not very familiar with the A330neo, but I believe I read that is one of its strengths.

Guy

seems China Airlines will also get Airbus 321, all Taiwan airlines will have AirBus 321’s.

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Don’t forget the “neo”!

Guy

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The prodigal sun is returning to Evergreen Group (Uni Air, in particular):

Autotranslate:

UNI Air announced today (13) that [it] will dismiss the current chairman Lin Zhizhong. It is reported that Zhang Rongfa’s fourth son and Zhang Guowei, chairman of Xingyu Airlines [Starlux Airline], will return as the legal representative of Spruce Company. [He is] Appointed as director of Lirong [Uni Air] Airlines, and [shall] acted [sic] as chairman, presid[ing] over tomorrow’s interim board of directors.

So, the slow death of Starlux?

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Just to be clear: I liked the post, not because I want “the slow death of StarLux” but because this is a major development. Perhaps a merger (i.e. shutting down StarLux) lies ahead.

Guy

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