Taiwan’s StarLux Airlines Applies For 15 New US Routes

StarLux Airlines, a Taiwan-based airline, has announced plans to expand its operations to North America in the second quarter of 2022.

The company has applied to the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) for routes to 15 new destinations located in 14 different cities in the United States.

Whether of not StarLux will actually launch these routes is another question, however.

According to its Chief Public Relations Officer Nie Kuo-Wei, there are several important factors that determine the market expansion schedule, which also includes aircraft delivery.

StarLux has ordered 17 wide-body A350 aircrafts from Airbus that were scheduled to arrive in the fourth quarter of 2021.

According to the carrier’s plan, nine of these – A350-900s – will be operating on flights to Guam (GUM), Honolulu (HNL), Los Angeles (LAX), Ontario (ONT), San Francisco (SFO), San Jose (SJC) and Seattle (SEA).

StarLux Airlines also plans to fly its eight A350-1000s on order to Boston (BOS), Chicago (ORD), Dallas (DFW), Houston (IAH), Miami (MIA), New York (JFK), Newark (EWR) and Washington (IAD).

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the global aviation industry very hard, the airline has no plans to cut its employees or cancel flights.

On the contrary, StarLux intends to expand its market in the months and years ahead, as it readies for returning passengers once the pandemic is over.

The carrier had previously announced its intent to operate on three new flight routes closer to home starting from this December as by operating flights to Bangkok, Osaka and Tokyo, StarLux believed air cargo revenue earned could help them break even after losses incurred due to the pandemic – the company recorded a loss of NT$1.31 billion for the first half of the year.