I didn't say he could get passengers from CI & BR BECAUSE of his small network and lack of alliance. What I meant is that it is probably harder to "grow the pie" because of this. Therefore, he has to get existing passengers fro CI and BR. Of course, he is also full of confidence that he can do this better than anyone else so he can get these people to move over.

The Chinese/Taiwanese are great a price competition but I also think if CI and BR didn't really get into it, CI / BR / JX might not get into it. There were a lot of ugly battles on airport resources (gates, land, spaces) and route authorities in the early days of BR.

He knows the numbers from running BR so I trust there are reasons LAX is on top of the list. LAX probably has the most affluent Taiwanese / Asian population for O & D premium traffic.

Currently CI only operates 7 weekly on LAX. 10 weekly from next week.

So it will be almost 5 daily but short of 4 weekly flights.

It's going to be difficult to fetch any premium passengers off BR and CI as they are not in an alliance. They will likely be able to get passengers if they chase down the price.

Those markets don't work. Most of those markets you listed above relies heavily on transfer markets and Starlux does not have that network. The only one that may work are SAN/SJC but then they might as well just serve LAX/ONT/SFO. SAN is only 2.5 hours away from LAX and if you leave San Diego at 7pm you will likely arrive LAX at latest 10pm (if you hit traffic), right on time for the midnight flights with many options. Maybe they can consider ONT/SAN/SJC once they get their first flight on LAX/SFO, but SJC still has the curfew problem where midnight flights are impossible to operate efficiently.

If they start they would need a market filled with Taiwanese whom are sensitive to prices willing to switch airlines. LAX is the perfect market as the international routes are dominated by numerous foreign airlines with O/Ds and no big presence of an US carrier there. It has always been very difficult to do beyond TPE transfer businesses from LAX and it will only get worse when Vietnam Airlines or Bamboo starts a direct route there. You need to be very cheap to get those VIP passengers.

In all honesty I don't see the reason for Taiwan to have 3 big/premium airlines. The only countries that I know have 3 big/premium airlines are the US and China (I am not familiar about India so I won't comment there). On top of that Starlux has no feeds from alliance partners (doubt CX will let them in), it gets really difficult to operate.

For most travelers, especially business travelers paying 5-10K for J fares, the last thing they want to do after a 15hr flight is get in a car for another 2.5-3hrs.

For O&D, LA may have a huge Asian/Taiwanese population with lots of VFR, but J cabins are filled by business travelers, and Taiwan business is tech hardware, not LA's finance/legal/film/aerospace. Many of Taiwan's business customers are NA companies primarily in SFO/SAN/AUS/SEA/NYC/BOS/WAS/DFW. LA is probably in the top 10, but there isn't much more than parts of AVGO and some low-volume aerospace. But most of these companies have existing contracts...

For onward transfers, it seems JX thinks they can also serve SE-Asia with A321s so presumably they'd eventually build their transfer network on the TPE side to fill the Y cabin. I think there is an opportunity to do a better job than CI/BR of building NA feed by partnering with non-alliance players B6/AS. For example, they might find a way to serve the 5M ppl in Detroit metro that can't book a flight with BR.

All this being said, I agree that the need for a 3rd carrier seems low. Presumably JX's creditors feel those A321/A350 frames will do well on the secondary market in a couple years.

True, but travelers (business or leisure) have been doing that in SAN for more than decades, especially for those who are around the Oceanside to La Jolla (not to say the inland Temecula) area. Passengers in SAN only have 1 option across the pacific via JAL to Tokyo. All others require a transfer, whether it's LAX, SEA, SFO or YVR. Personally I don't find transfers via any US destinations to be a pleasant experience as you have to go through immigration and then re-do all those check ins when you are back in the states (and going through LAX is definitely not fun).

5-10K J fares? I guess your target airlines are the likes of CX or UA. I am sure passengers can live with BR and CI's 3.5-5K fares in J and stick to that. Going to Riverside is almost 2 hours as well and people have been doing that in the Great Los Angeles area. Driving and traffic is normal to So Cals.

Of all, LAX is a very interesting market for the Taiwanese. Most premium market you named are actually not in LAX. For LAX it's more of a leisure premium and small business travelers (nothing big to large corp level). The Taiwanese there are so rich they fly back to Taiwan every month or every other month or so to visit (semi-retired). Besides the Taiwanese, airlines also rely on transfer markets beyond TPE and LAX to get their feeds, and their cheap J fares find many passengers even in Business Class.

CI was stupid dumping all their Premium passengers ex-TPE to other areas in the US to BR when they cancelled the afternoon flight. Not sure if restoring the afternoon flight next week will get passengers back.

Hopefully they can build up with 321. As passengers we are always welcoming competitions to get low fares.

I'm usually heading to/from the east coast, where 5-5.5K is advance purchase J fare on BR (JFK-TPE) and close-in or popular dates will be 6-7K. It can approach 10K for refundable or two 1-ways. This followed by 3hr drive north/south on I95 to WAS or BOS at 10pm. The alternative is UA with similar prices, but an extra ~6-7hrs time and the misery of the TCON through SFO for UA871/872. Hence I would love some JX competition to the east coast.

I've never flown LAX on these retiree flights, but BR JFK and especially UA871/872 are mostly filled with tech workers, especially Apple and Google.

BTW, am I doing something wrong? When I search Google flights LAX-TPE non-stop J it is 5K too, where do I find these 3.5K fares?

3.5K are extreme promo fares which won't see often. I see ~4K fares on CI regularly on the cheap fare. I don't know about the JFK market much and didn't really put my time in it cause I don't fly there.




BR Royal Laurel in general has been more expensive in comparison to CI (while Economy is the other way around). There were some promo fares right after the strike. If you are flying close in with high demands or during the high season then yes the fare can skyrocket to 7-8K. 10K I rarely if ever seen.

The fares will drop down a bit as CI is bringing the afternoon flight back. It never made sense to cut that flight to benefit BR's morning flight. Back then it's usually BR's morning flight is on sale for ex-LAX.

Bay area traffic is now at its worse since I can remember. It’s far worse than dot.com boom era. [Omni political comment removed by moderator.]

I used to leave work around 6pm and go to Burlingame area to grab some dinner before heading to airport. Now I just wait until after 9 so I don’t have to be stuck in traffic and it would still take me close to 1.5 hours to SFO.

If anyone offer flight from SJC to TPE I will jump ship immediately.

Right, SJC-TPE flight will get only SJC customers. But SFO flight will get SFO AND SJC, AND customers who connect from/ to other parts of the country in U.S.. I have never heard anyone in SF, North, or East bay go to SJC to catch flights.

Yep like I said SJC is probably one of those destinations that will work, but I am unsure how many passengers will be like krispykrme cause the flight will have to be in operation during the day, not a good time to catch the flight and lose a working day. If EVA does not venture into ONT I can see Starlux pick up traffic there, but only after they start LAX (and do well). China Airlines should seriously consider adding a second evening flight at ONT or LAX and compete with EVA while sealing out Starlux.

Anything south of San Leandro is faster to SJC then to SFO. Same holds for Walnut Creek.

Majority of money or hi-tech is closer to San Jose than SF.

I would say 70% of my co-worker when given a choice not being forced to fly UA, all would much prefer to go via SJC.

We don�t usually lose a work day.

The only difference is that we get Sunday day time to rest or have some fun before work.

Day time operation would be arrive early Sunday evening. So just go bed.

Red eye flight is always better because of sleep. Traffic is just getting on my nerve.

First A321neo

Delivered: https://udn.com/news/story/7241/4126852
Arrived TPE (via DXB and BKK): https://udn.com/news/story/7241/4130250

How much will frequent flyer program / affiliation affect the:

1 - US high tech crowd (and many of them fall under #2 also)
2 - affluent Taiwanese living in the US
3 - affluent Taiwanese living in Taiwan

when making their decision on trying JX? It seems unless they get can into oneWorld, they have got to make a deal with Alaska?

Well I understand maybe you don't lose a day, but others will.

If your company's traveling pattern is always weekends, then I am unsure how the frequencies will work out on the airline's perspective. Are they only going to run flights on the weekends? Don't think that will work.

FFP will affect traveling patterns, but not so much for the dirt cheap fares. If they are going for dirt cheap markets in Economy then it doesn't do much. However, most of the bay area Taiwanese can afford Premium Economy tickets, so those have got to be credited somewhere worthy (unless Starlux itself is a good FFP).

Also, I highly doubt any big business contracts at the bay area will move to Starlux. Simply not enough connections.

Their PR is on high gears. Here is one of the profiles: