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Taiwan's China Airlines and EVA Air post month-on-month passenger growth
July 17th 2020
Taiwan's two largest carriers have reported demand and passenger revenue growth in June as the threat of the coronavirus pandemic subsided and restrictions on travel were relaxed. Read More »
China Airlines (CAL) monthly traffic statistics, released this week, showed it flew 16,241 passengers in June, a 47% improvement on 11,031 passengers in May.
Revenue passenger kilometres (RPK), rose 60% month-on-month and available seat kilometres (ASK), increased 70%.
It was a similar story at local rival, EVA Air, which said this week it transported 22,337 passengers in June, up 2% from 21,831 in May. Demand improved 18% and capacity rose 40%, EVA Air said in its monthly traffic report.
While the monthly figures represented a fraction of the traffic experienced before the onset of COVID-19, they align with recent International Air Transport Association (IATA) observations that some parts of the world were beginning to open up.
Since late June, Taiwan has allowed entry to non-residents from certain low or medium-risk countries for business reasons, with travellers able to apply for a shortened period of quarantine.
The country's Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) also relaxed entry measures for foreign nationals. Since June 29 they have been able to apply to travel to Taiwan for "reasons other than tourism and regular social visits".
As well, residents of Hong Kong and Macao can apply to travel to Taiwan for humanitarian reasons, emergency situations, business purposes or if they are a spouse or child of a Taiwan national.
And Taipei Taoyuan International Airport started accepting transit passengers from June 25.
The latest figures from the CECC showed Taiwan had recorded 452 cases of COVID-19 as of Thursday. Of those, 440 have recovered and seven have died from the disease.
Domestically, the CECC in early June relaxed some rules on domestic flights.
CAL, which said recently it would restart nonstop Taipei-New York flights later this month, reported passenger revenue of TW$417 million (US$14.1 million) for June, a 46% increase from TW$285 million in May.
EVA Air also posted double-digit growth in passenger revenue, which rose 15% in June to TW$575 million, from TW$501 million in May.
Despite the month-on-month growth, passenger revenue at CAL and EVA Air was down 95% and 92%, respectively, from June 2019.
