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Taiwan's China Airlines Looks to Build Enhanced Revenue with 14 Airbus Jets for Delivery Between H2, 2016 and 2018

2016/01/22 | By Steve

With its newly procured airplanes to take off on new routes beginning in the second half of this year, Taiwan-based China Airlines Ltd., one of the island's top-2 airlines by size, looks to build momentum in passenger loading, cost efficiencies via reduced fuel consumption, as well as enhanced brand prestige with the advanced airplanes in the years ahead.

China Airlines ordered 14 A350-900 long-range, twin-engine, wide-body jets from the European airplane builder Airbus in 2007, as part of its effort to upgrade the passenger jet fleet, which currently consists of 24 A330-300 and 6 A340-300 planes and dozens of Boeing airplanes. With the first of the ordered A350 airliners already under construction on assembly lines in January, China Airlines will receive the first four planes throughout the second half of this year, and the remainder between 2017 and 2018, to replace the existing A330 and A340 planes in its fleet.

According to China Airlines, the first A350-900 is scheduled to be delivered in July and brought into operation on a trial basis in August for flights between Taipei and Hong Kong. Without significant problems to be found during the trial flights, the new airplanes will be commissioned for European routes as early as the fourth quarter of this year.

After receiving all the ordered A350-900s, China Airlines will replace the exiting airliners flying the long-haul routes to destinations as Vancouver, New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii with the more technologically and environmentally progressive, fuel-efficient airplanes. The replacements will enable China Airlines to achieve a likely 10-20 percent gain in monthly revenue once all the A350-900s will have been put into operation. Such improved results are realistic simply because the new passenger jetliner is built mostly with advanced carbon-fiber composites and light metals such as titanium alloy, hence reducing the total fixed mass to be carried to achieve lower fuel consumption among typical, aluminum-fuselage commercial airplanes, not to mention offering greatly enhanced safety.

Benefiting from relatively cheaper aviation fuel amid continued price drops of crude oil, typically amounting to over 40 percent of an airline company's operational cost, China Airlines is expected by European institutional investors to finish 2015 with consolidated revenue of NT$150.765 billion (about US$4.5 billion), and a four-year high of NT$10.743 billion (US$320.69 million) in net profits, or NT$2.07 per share.

China Airlines' Performance by Year
Year

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015
(estimated)

Net Profits

- NT$2.04 Bn.

NT$440 M.

- NT$410 M.

- NT$1.27 Bn.

NT$10.74 Bn.

Earnings per share

- NT$0.42

NT$0.01

- NT$0.08

- NT$0.25

NT$2.07

Source: Market Observation Post System