Taiwan’s youngest airline, Starlux Airlines, currently operates all of its flights out of Taipei Taoyuan Airport. The airline is getting ready to expand its footprint, though. On December 8, 2023, it announced it opened an office in Taichung in preparation for the launch of flights out of the city.
Continue reading to learn more.
Starlux to Launch Flights Out of Taichung in H1 2024
Based on the airline’s announcement on X, Starlux Airlines is currently executing PROJECT TAICHUNG intending to launch operations out of what is one of Taiwan’s three largest cities in the first half of 2024. To begin with, on December 8, 2023, it opened an office in the city.
The airline was founded in 2018 by the former chairman of EVA Air. It launched operations in 2020 and since then, its fleet has grown to 13 Airbus A321neos, four A330-900s, and four A350-900s. The airline still has A330-900s and A350-900s on order.
Starlux Airlines is based at Taipei Taoyuan Airport from where it currently operates primarily to other destinations in Asia including Japan, Macau, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. That said, it also operates a couple of long-haul routes to the United States.
What Routes Will Starlux Operate Out of Taichung?
With Taipei being only about two hours away from Taichung by car or train, Taichung Airport is relatively small and only offers flights within Asia. In addition to a couple of domestic destinations served by Mandarin Airlines and Uni Air, there are also flights from Taichung to South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Vietnam.
At this point, Starlux Airlines has not announced what routes it plans to launch out of Taichung. Almost certainly, though, they will be routes within Asia using the smallest aircraft in its fleet – the Airbus A321neo.
Since Starlux Airlines doesn’t have any on order, it will have to rearrange its schedules to free up one airframe – either by utilizing its aircraft more efficiently, switching an existing route to one of its widebodies, or canceling an existing route. That’s assuming it does not have excess A321neo capacity now.
If I had to guess based on the destinations that Starlux Airlines already serves out of Taipei and the destinations that are not served out of Taichung at this point, I’d say Tokyo Narita in Japan is the most likely.
Not only is there a lot of travel in both directions between Taiwan and Japan, but Japan is also the country that sees the largest number of Starlux Airlines flights. In addition to triple daily flights from Taipei Taoyuan to Tokyo Narita and double daily flights to Osaka Kansai, the airline also serves Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Nagoya Chubu, Naha, Sapporo, and Sendai.
On top of that, the Taichung – Tokyo Narita route used to be served by Mandarin Airlines in the past but is not anymore.
Summary
Over the last couple of years, Taiwan’s Starlux Airlines has grown its operations out of Taipei Taoyuan Airport considerably. As the next step in its growth, the airline is planning to launch flights out of Taichung, another major city in Taiwan, starting in the first half of 2024.
While the airline has not revealed which destinations it is planning to serve out of Taichung, if I had to guess, I’d say it will be a daily route to Tokyo Narita using the A321neo to begin with.
