News
China Airlines inaugurates Ontario route; Australasia exclusively served by A350
March 29th 2018
Taiwan’s China Airlines (CAL) has switched one of its twice a day Los Angeles International (LAX) flights to Ontario in California, a domestic airport approximately 80 kilometres east of Los Angeles. Read More » CAL has said the rather unusual route would shave off significant travelling time for the large ethnic Chinese population in the San Gabriel Valley in eastern Los Angeles.
The daily Taiwan-Ontario B777-300ER route with 40 business, 62 premium economy and 256 economy seats is also expected to attract healthy cargo business.
CAL chairman, Nuan-Hsuan Ho, said “the extensive studies and assessments carried out by CAL have now finally paid off. The launch of Taoyuan-Ontario will tap into the market for travel between Taiwan, Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau among the eastern Los Angeles’ Chinese community. Now, CAL has set its sights on the market for travel between Greater Los Angeles and Southeast Asia. Average bookings were 70% full, despite March to April being the off-peak season, he said.
CAL has 32 flights a week on six routes to the U.S.: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Ontario, New York JFK, Honolulu and Guam.
It remains to be seen whether Ontario performs as some analysts believe CAL was ill-advised to relinquish one of its valuable Los Angeles slots, particularly considering rival EVA Air flies from Taoyuan to the city three times a day and Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways serves Los Angeles up to four times daily.
This week CAL replaced the A330-300 with the A350-900 from Taipei to Brisbane and Melbourne. Following the equipment change, all of CAL’s routes to Australia and New Zealand will be flown exclusively by the airline’s A350 fleet. CAL flies to Auckland, Brisbane, Christchurch, Sydney and Melbourne.
