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Chang Kuo-wei to launch StarLux Airlines
July 14th 2017
Evergreen Group heir and former EVA Airways chairman, Chang Kuo-wei, is readying to launch his own airline later this year. Read More »
StarLux will be “the new hope of Taiwan's aviation industry”, Chang said this week, and added the new carrier would be a tier-one international full-service airline with a fleet of A321s and A350 and/or B787/B777X aircraft to serve international gateways from Taipei.
The new airline will be headquartered in downtown Taipei. It will “convey a sense of luxury” and have its own MRO division, Chang said.
Chang and StarLux will need to overcome a significant obstacle: under current regulations, any individual or company applying to operate civil aviation services in Taiwan must have been in the international transportation or trading sector for at least five years and must have generated revenue of over NT$6 billion (US$196 million) per annum.
It is expected that Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Authority will loosen the rules in the case of StarLux. Dubbed “the Chang Kuo-wei exemption” in local media, the regulator is likely to approve an AOC for StarLux, given Chang has significant personal wealth and experience in running a global airline.
Chang became chairman of EVA Air in January 2013, but when his father, Evergreen Group founder, Chang Jung-Fa, died in January 2016, a succession war erupted and Kuo-wei was eventually removed as chairman and replaced by EVA stalwart, Steve Lin.
