TennisNoob

No doubt CI has been overlooking. Their mistakes are finally coming into reality with the unplanned purchase of the 77W.

The BR Business module is hard to see around the airline industry and I love it.
Full flights, low prices, top service, better pitch, all around A+.

What I find amazing is not only does BR have amazing PAX load but BR is all about cargo.

adambisi

Agreed that USA routes are not a priority of BR due to recent planned expansion.

Disagree with the notion that BOS "can be served from JFK or YYZ." Its a good thing CX, EK, JL, and TK didn't think that way in the past couple of years. I'm sorry but if you going to connect - connect in a foreign airport without pre-clearance i.e. NRT or HKG if you can help it.

You cannot book BOS on BR's website. Also - no *A link to JFK - you have to use B6 but I couldn't get those interlines to come up.

There's been a rumbling at Logan Airport that CI may be considering TPE-BOS.

coolfish1103

Well, airline management is more complicated than we think. BR had the 77W while CI had the 333, which turns out to be the right decision over time. Keeping the 744 is not a good decision for CI, but so as having just the 332 and M90 to operate regional haul in BR till the last two years.

Now that the 77W is covering the 744 destinations for CI and 321/333 coming in for 332 replacements at BR, both are getting aircraft changed in the recent years. CI won't be making a move on long haul till the 359 is arriving, but BR has to make a move now cause they purchased way too many 77W for a destination like TPE can handle. Connecting traffic becomes a key.

bzcat

Exactly... 77W exceeded performance expectation so BR and Boeing agreed to switch the 77L order. The reason I brought it up is because I suspect 787-10 performance will also exceed expectation so BR may not want the -9.

BR was actually the "launch customer" for 77L... but never operated the type.

I'd guess BR is a good candidate eventually for a mix fleet of 778 and 779 (can't see them operate all 779... too much capacity). BR is wedded to GE so it will be a Boeing wide-body customer for a very long time - as long as GE is the primary engine supplier for the 777 and 787 program.

bzcat

I agree with all of this except that I think the 77W wasn't the cause for BR trying to do more connecting business. Rather I believe it was the other way around... BR realized pretty early on that 77W offered the right cost basis and seat count for them to make money on transit business. From its inception, BR operated a much different business model than CI and transit was always an important part of BR's business. Not so much for CI which had larger share of TPE O&D.

CI got some great deals from Boeing to take the last remaining 747-400 passenger jets to go with its 747F orders so you can see that management decided to trade higher operating costs for lower capital costs. They did have to switch from P&W to GE engines but the commonality with cargo fleet was a plus until the cargo market collapsed. In hindsight, some people may say CI waited too long to replace the 747-400 but it didn't really impact CI's financial as much as people think. Yes, it got expensive to operate 747-400 compared to 77W but in the meanwhile, CI had much lower depreciation.

BR sticking with MD90 for so long on short haul was the real puzzler. They should have got rid of those plane a lot sooner. By the time scheduled service to China began in the waning days of Chen Administration, it was clear to BR that MD90 lacked the seating capacity to take advantage of the limited flight slots. It wasn't like A321 or 738 were hard to get in the lease market. Yet the decision to settle on A321 as replacement didn't come until nearly 8 years later.

Transpacificflyer

You most certainly can book Boston flights on EVA's website. Use the multicity option. The dropdown cities will show multiple cities other than LAX, SEA & JFK. EVA has interline agreements with Virgin America, Alaska, Jet Blue, and United. The YYZ-TPE departure is at 01:30. Direct flights from BOS to YYZ are at 5 PM, 6.50 PM, 8.50 PM. The Y flight RT is usually around $320 and is 40% less than alternatives. The reason YYZ is an interesting departure point is that J class is often $1000+ less than at JFK. It can also be $500 less than SFO/LAX departures. Using YYZ is a cost effective option.

username

It seemed BR's development came in stages. Early on, passenger was really the "night job" for Cargo. YF Chang wanted a Taiwanese carrier that served the TW customers and made the Taiwanese proud. Once it started TPAC and failed to fill a huge Evergreen Deluxe cabin with the Taiwanese, connecting traffic became more important and necessary. It shrank ED drastically and re-timed the NYC flights (the early days of BR 32 get into EWR early in the morning) and added night flights for LAX/SFO.

The 77W was probably an independent decision. K Chang knows planes and thought that was the way to go for TPAC. It was obviously the right decision and I think people trust BR to do ETOPS more than CI. I even wonder if CI did not have the confidence to do ETOPS TPAC? CI, as you recall, had some problems with MD-11 engines in the 90s. In the 90s when BR did TPE-HNL with the 767 and CI did it with 747, the only whisper was 747 can fly on a more direct routes so a little faster.

If I remember right (I have all the early BR airplane models), there were only the 767, 747 and MD11 initially. I think the MD90 came later and probably plans to replace it were held back by the company not doing so well for a while and the uncertainty with cross-strait routes? Didn't BR also have 757s at one point briefly?

coolfish1103

The original fleet of 77W was not, but simply a replacement for it's 74W and 74E fleet plus filling in capacity from other airlines' withdrawal (such as MH and SQ), basically quite conservative. However, the extra capacity that is added with the new aircraft purchases from K Chang pretty much forced them to get in deeper to the transit business cause TPE simply does not have that much O&D even to North America, though the increase is minimal.

Comparing the operations between BR and CI, it's coverage in South and Southeast Asia is quite poor from TPE. It's been adding some flights to Northeast Asia but connection traffic are generally not there from North America or Europe. There are connection business for China, but you can only do one-way right now due to politics and O&D on major cities are better than transit business (CAN, PEK, PVG, SZX), so it's not heavily depended. As of now, flights departing from TPE are BR [v. CI]:

16-20x BKK [v. 19-28x]
6-7x CGK [v. 7x+7x via HKG]
5-7x DPS [v. 7-11x]
5-7x HAN [v. 7x]
4-7x KUL [v. 7-14x]
7-14x MNL [v. 14x]
3x PNH [v. 3-7x]
7-11x SIN [v. 12-14x]
14x SGN [v. 14x]
3-4 SUB [v. 5-7x via SIN]

...plus CI has flights to DEL, PEN, KLO and RGN.

In the next 5-7 years we will see who is doing it right... CI by maintaining the long haul business to the minimal while adding more flights to regional and mid ranged, or BR's aggressive venture into long haul destinations and adding some flights to popular destinations such as Korea and Japan.

Financial wise probably not as much, but they indeed lost lots of customers on the way, and those will eventually add up to haunt the sales (which shows quite clear on the JFK destination). People would opt to fly BR and pay a little bit more to LAX and JFK than CI's old antique aircraft, especially after BR upgraded from PL to RL.

Currently CI is still keeping the cargo business while BR seems to be leaving the major business to the belly under the 77W, which I am unsure if that's a good move.

Even after they added 321 they did not put entertainment on there, which is a let down to many Taiwanese customers. Pax will have the mind of if JAL can do it, why can't BR? I might as well fly JAL, or CI which usually operates with large aircraft on the same destination that has entertainment.

lolstebbo

According to people I know in New York that used to fly CI, the flight timing when CI switched from ANC to KIX was more detrimental than the inferior hard product when BR switched over to JFK from EWR.

bzcat

BR began operations in 1994 with 767-200ER and 747-400.

MD11 joined the fleet in 1995.

The 757-200 were leased from FAT between 2002 and 2004. FAT ordered too many 757 on the assumption that scheduled flights to China was going to happen so they ended up leasing out half of the fleet. BR needed some interim capacity so it worked for both sides.

coolfish1103

Yes, that's another problem cause you can no longer clear immigration and customs at ANC and the flight was re-timed. However, since the KIX segment has been dropped with the timing going back to the same old, it's been an year and CI still has not recovered even with the timing coming back (now both have to clear immigration at JFK no matter what).

lolstebbo

Ah. I guess 3-4-3 is really hurting CI? That's probably the only noticeable difference between CI and BR at this point.

gigibite

EVA does not serve BOS via JFK or YYZ. The TPE->JFK return arrives at 21:10, so this requires either a rental car and 3 hr drive or an overnight in JFK. The TPE->YYZ return arrives at 20:30, and the last AC flight to BOS is 20:55.

There is also no routing to BOS via IAH (22:05 arrival from TPE).

The only BOS<->TPE options on EVA are west coast flights that add 6-7hrs over a non-stop. Or the drive to JFK.

CX and JL do provide good 1-stop options for BOS-based OneWorld flyers.

While you can technically book BOS<->TPE on the EVA website with a west coast routing, it always seems to cost at least 2x over the fares on travel websites.

username

I think the first 747 was delivered in 1992 (TPE-LAX was 12/12/1992 - I did LAX-TPE that month) and they started flying in 1990 or 1991 with 767s?

coolfish1103

I think it's just that once customers switch from CI to BR previously, it's difficult to get them to come back again unless BR does something extremely wrong or priced too high.