Four Airlines to operate Taipei-Seattle
 

In addition to EVA Air who is currently the only operator on this route, Delta will enter this market from 2024/6/6, China Airlines will resume service from 2024/7/14 and Starlux will inaugural their first flight from 2024/8/16. Initial flights as follows (there are schedule changes in W24/25):

TPE-SEA
BR 24 2300-1910 77W 246 (seasonal)
BR 26 2340-1950 781 Daily

CI 22 2330-1950 359 12467 7/14-
DL 68 1725-1405 339 Daily 6/7-
JX 22 2000-1615 359 357 8/16-

SEA-TPE
BR 23 0110-0410+1 77W 357 (seasonal)
BR 25 0210-0510+1 781 Daily

CI 21 0140-0505+1 359 12357 7/15-
DL 69 1115-1515+1 339 Daily 6/6-
JX 21 0210-0510+1 359 146 8/17-

This means the route will have it's service more than doubled (currently at 10x by just BR) from 2023. Passengers should seek out for discounts if you are planning to fly this market from mid-summer.

As result CI 16/15 TPE-SFO will be cancelled.

When 4 airlines flew LAX-PVG, things were great for consumers.

Competitions are great for consumers, but I wonder how long they're going to last. Would the economics work for JX, for example, relying completely on its own flights at TPE? It doesn't fly to Chinese mainland (other than MFM), unlike the other two Taiwanese carriers, to benefit from the passenger traffic to and from the Chinese mainland.

Seattle seems pretty well set wrt China flights now (Delta to Shanghai plus Hainan to Beijing and Chongqing).

Should be good times for folks using AF/KL or *A miles to go to Asia.

4 airlines fly SFO-TPE right now with up to 8 flights a day (up to 6 of them being around midnight or 1am westbound, so it's not like there's scheduling variety either), and that hasn't had a noticeable effect on fares as far as I can tell. I don't really know what other benefit for consumers there would be besides sheer capacity (although that hasn't exactly translated into a plethora of award seats either) since the Taiwan-based airlines are all pretty similar experience- and service-wise especially if you're in Y or PE.

I wonder how long the flights will last. It might be good to bring some competition on the price level, but not a lot of airlines can sustainably fly with half-full loads. CI has government subsidies going for it, but not sure how long Starlux and DL will keep the flights.

Here's another problem. With the exception of DL flights, all the other flights arrive at SEA in the evenings. By the time passengers clear customs/immigration, there would be few connecting flights that day to go elsewhere in the US.

Doesn't SEA have some red-eyes to the east coast?

Yes, there're a few flights to a few big cities on the east coast. But after spending their previous night on a long TPE-SEA flight (assuming they didn't have to take a connecting flight to TPE), I'm not sure they want to spend another night on another flight within the US.

For passengers in J, there're also few good options on lounges at SEA. Many lounges are closed, or about to close, by that time. The few remaining ones are crowded with passengers bound for Asia on late flights.

Chinese are still prohibited from transiting via Taiwan outbound (with exception from 3 cities), meaning they cannot fly PVG-TPE-SEA, but they can fly SEA-TPE-PVG, so Taiwanese airlines are filling the planes today without mainlander passengers.

LAX/SFO-TPE are among the easiest routes to find J award flights (on CI at least).

Taiwanese airlines focus on feeding their Taipei hub to US gateways with large Asian diaspora, they don't need connections to other US cities. Relationship between BR and UA, and between CI and DL aren't close at all.

Yeah, but that's not something that changed as a consequence of JX entering the market (or even UA increasing their frequencies out of SFO). The only thing that's really changed is BR's gotten even stingier than before with regards to releasing award capacity.

CI/BR/JX focus on connections through TPE, UA/DL focus on connections through SEA/SFO. It makes sense for each carrier's principal geography.

I've gone the double-red-eye when I lived in the midwest, though. Definitely not fun but it also felt like less of a waste of time than if it was two daytime flights.

Yes. It'd be interesting to watch how JX does on that route if it turns out there's excess capacity, because it has the weakest network in Asia around TPE compared to the other two Taiwanese airlines.

Apparently JX and IT have decided not to open TPE-HKG S24 with the slots they received after BR and CI have relinquished some of their rights. The reason cited was hilarious: Due to government's limited policy on Chinese group travelers.

The fares have decreased. At least none of the airlines are charging 40-65K for Economy round trips during the summer this year (unlike last year). If we want to see the fares drop below 30K then there needs to be more flights between China and US and/or CX bringing up their capacities. CX hasn't recovered (just 2 flights to LAX, SFO and not yet returned to SEA).

Seattle will definitely shake things up cause Delta will be competing with UA on the domestic passengers to Taiwan and SEA doesn't have that large market in comparison to LAX and SFO. We are looking at double capacities here, not 1 additional flight from UA at SFO (+0.5 from JX) or 1 additional flight from JX at LAX.

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Taiwanese are quite price sensitive as well (just not to the point of VIP), I am sure some of them will take those AS codeshares to the east coast if they want to transfer here.

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I would assume some of those lounges will get extended hours for all these 0150 or 0215 flights. Would not CI use the Sky Club? JX is likely using AS lounge. At worst there is the Club.

I think BR only went stingy on Star Awards (1 per flight). People have reported finding seats fairly easy using BR miles in comparison to the past when K Chang was still in BR.

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...and they are not going to inaugural HKG after they received 15 weekly flights. Maybe they will after they launch SEA and find they don't have enough customers.

DL Sky Club is always crowded and currently closes at midnight, but it's possible that it'll extend its hours to accommodate late CI flights. The Club also closes at midnight. When I flew BR late last year, the only lounge that was open was the BA lounge because it was under contract with BR for its J customers. The lounge was small and very crowded. The United Club, which BR J customers can also access, closes at 10pm.

Yes, BR make many more J awards available to its own members using BR miles. For those of us living on the eastern side of the Pacific, BR miles are practically only useful for that purpose.

This is great. YVR - Asia flights have been WAY too expensive post-Covid.

Hopefully, West Jet can send some traffic down via Delta and Starlux can figure out a partner to feed traffic to/from YVR. Maybe Alaska Airlines.

I expect DL (and WS by proxy) to help out CI in SEA just as well as CI hooks up DL in TPE.:D



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When could we expect fare wars? LOL

I am booking an itinerary from Seattle to SEAsia for December/ January. Right now, the cheapest options are KE, UA, and NH at about $4600 ~ $5k. But only NH has non-crazy timings. Also, I am looking at the fares and for business class, the fares for this December are about $1K+ more expensive to last year. (I booked around March/ April for Dec/ Jan).

EVA is consistently priced at $7500+++.

As soon as the Chinese airlines are permitted to spread their wings again.

Is this gonna happen this year? Fares just keep going up!

Last year, Turkish had low business fares from USA to Asia, but they’re all now gone!

No. Domestic politics, geopolitics, and the war in Ukraine are going to keep it from happening.

I'm hoping for at least one more cap increase this year, but given that much of the US side has gone into squatting mode since the last boost, I'm not so sure. The thing is, the DOT is theoretically more beholden to consumers than the shareholders of US based airlines.

I'm not going to write off JX to SEA just yet. Every time I fly to SEA it seems like I am seated next to someone who really wanted to be on Alaska but the flight was sold out. I am amazed at the loyalty of Alaska fliers. If JX and AS have a good tie-up I can see a lot of business fliers in SEA choosing JX. And they won't be disappointed by JX's in-flight service.

If the merger between AS and HI goes through, I expect to see JX in HNL.

CI and DL, like UA and BR, have trouble co-habitating the same sandbox and occasionally resort to throwing sand at each other. :D If JX and AS can actually cooperate JX has a chance.

I'd like to see JX survives as well and I'll personally benefit from more competitions. JX offers a good product and its AS partnership will certainly help on this side of the Pacific.

Among JX's routes, LAX is probably still the most competitive, but it has a much larger Asian diaspora (especially Taiwanese diaspora). So, there's much greater natural demand there as well. SFO has the semiconductor trade to support flights to/from TPE (in addition to Asian Diaspora). I hope I'm wrong, but SEA-TPE may not be in such a demand, even with AS providing connecting flights in the US, because TPE is usually not the final destination for people taking TPAC flights to TPE. Taiwanese airlines need to provide connections to the rest of Asia from TPE. JX is the weakest in that regard, compared to its Taiwanese competitors, not to mention other Asian carriers such as CX, JL, NH, SQ, etc.

I won't be surprised if both CI and JX works with the same lounge and the passengers are all thrown in the same place. After all, just one lounge needs to extend the hours. There is also the possibilities where First Class on JX goes elsewhere, though.

They all work with AS so there is no reason why CI won't continue to work with AS. AS is a wild card here.

No reason to write off JX cause JX needs to make SEA to work. They are the new airline that needs to capture the market and they can't get a decent transfer going via TPE if all they have is LAX and SFO. If they can't get SEA to work I fail to see how they can get any destinations beyond LAX or SFO to work.

If there is going to be overcapacity issue then I would assume the first airline to walk out would be DL. I think this route can handle 2 daily flights, maybe 3.

HA currently works with CI on Honolulu routes. They use to code on CI when CI had direct flights.

I would say SEA is the first challenge for JX. LAX and SFO are just copying BR. K Chang knows what BR has been doing and it works. LAX is never an one carrier dominant route so it's easy to slot a daily flight there when the load was always around 90%. SFO is not the same as LAX but it was near 95% before JX entry, so it's not that difficult (though UA did add capacity before JX entered). On top of that, these two market naturally have more transfer pax. However, that mechanic cannot be applied to SEA. SEA was always 90% plus but that was just 7-10 weekly. When SEA had 2 daily BR flights back then, the loading was around 80%. I would assume the #s would look better post-COVID since CX is not back and not many Chinese flights are available, but still I don't see this route having that many pax.

I would not be surprised to see ~60% loading on any of the four carriers (except BR) after summer is finished.

I'll be surprised if Delta remains in this arena for more than 6 months (a strange way to deploy two of its precious widebodies, especially given that it's been taking heat from the DOT for playing games with HND and China slots).

I also have doubts about the second BR flight, at least daily.

JX might as well throw in the towel altogether though if it can't make SEA viable.

And, I think CI will stick around too, which will be an easier task after Delta backs down.

When booking through the Starlux web site, it doesn’t give you flight options with connections! Frustrating!

August is also just around the corner, and they haven’t loaded SEA yet as an option.

6 months would be a tragedy though, might as well just cancel now. I would expect Delta to save face and stay in SEA-TPE for at least a year.

The second BR flight is only season during peak season for recent years, but the peak season may now be shorter.

CI will stick around. They got 359 specifically for SEA. HNL won't be a better option (the only other long haul destination they have not restarted).

Before I return to my armchair analysis, I want to disclaim that I'm not under any illusion that my magic 8 ball is remotely in the same league as Delta's route planners. They have troves of data, which we lack, and also employ expert data scientists, which I am not.:D

With that off my chest, I'm sticking with my 6 months max prediction for the following reasons (most of which have already been broached up thread):

-very few connections to/from TPE (even if they were on good terms with any of the Taiwanese airlines, I can't imagine they would help out a direct direct competitor)
-so, they will continue to rely on ICN for most destinations other than TPE and maybe a couple of places in SE Asia like SGN
-their realistic catchment area in the US doesn't extend much beyond SAN or SLC
-AS had/has codeshare relationships with all 3 of the others, and is still stronger than DL in SEA (I know DL hoped they would have rolled over by now, but that's a prediction they got wrong)
-the dormancy waiver they filed with the DOT for their China slots now looks kind of shaky since new slots are on the table for it to use (this was not the case when they first cooked up the TPE idea) ---> SEA-PKX is shorter than SEA-TPE and only has one competitor (HU 2x/week) instead of 3
-I believe that the 3 Taiwanese carriers all have better cost structures than DL ---> lower break even point ---> when the inevitable fare war ensues, they might have more staying power
-none of other three have the same aircraft utilization crunch Delta faces; in fact, they need places to fly their 77Ws to keep them busy
-CI and BR both have some historical presence in the market, and the corresponding good will that is derived from such


That having been said, I agree with you that leaving before the 6-month mark would be a bad look, and could cause pains at the individual level within the company (i.e. nobody wants to be the guy who pitched the losing strategy). But, if they had a solid face saving excuse, then maybe they could justify a quick exit.

Starlux has filed the schedule two weeks ago and strangely they still have not announced the flight. SFO-TPE just went daily yesterday on March 20 and I was surprised that JX did not take the opportunity to introduce Seattle.

At the same time, they filed the schedule for Phu Doc, Vietnam, one day before announcing the flight officially.

I wonder if JX is having "second" thoughts since CI announced the resumption of the Seattle flight, or JX actually faces another delay on Airbus A350 delivery or has issues with slots or securing lounges at Seattle. They will be the only airline serving this route with a first class cabin, and I still can't think of another first class type lounge operator at Sea-tac especially given its late night operation. Alaska Lounge is nice, but they are no Asian Airlines' lounges. It barely meets an international business class standard. I also can't imagine AS opening one of the lounges late just for JX unless JX is willing to pay $$$.

Anyway I am curious on what is the last minute hold up. But given my track record at FT lately, there is possibly an official announcement when I wake up tomorrow morning here in Asia. LOL!

Carfield

This is actually a big difference imo, pilot/FA pay in Taiwan is probably half of what DL pays if even that. I also imagine a lot of people flying SEA-TPE and terminating in TPE are Mandarin speaking and would prefer CI/BR/JX over DL for language reasons, and SEA-SE Asia traffic wouldn't take DL SEA-TPE.

I feel like whoever pitched SEA-TPE could just be like "it was a great move at the time, but now we can fly to mainland China and that'll be more profitable so let's do that instead" and save face that way.

Right, DL probably can do better by launching SEA-PKX instead, even after HU launches SEA-PEK, US China market is still underserved.

I am sure they got enough data to support the route but then there was just BR when they announced the launch.

I agree with most of what you said, but I think CI's cost structure is up there, maybe just a tad cheaper than DL. Working environment is the best of the three airlines (and obviously the cost is way higher). The catchment area could include some additional east coast or central area transfers (basically stealing domestic connecting UA pax from SFO-TPE). Having 4 airlines here with overcapacity will definitely affect other destinations as well. The pax will go for the cheapest place to transfer and there can't be that many new pax entering the market.

SEA-PKX is obviously a better option than SEA-TPE with less competition and more Chinese pax. So the save face will be, "we found a better place to fly so we are ceasing Taipei and go for Beijing."

Second thoughts would be adding another flight to LAX, but that would also mean they have no ability to start destinations that require lots of work. I think SEA is a must go, but they may keep it at 3 to 4 weekly for a while rather than putting it daily the moment they got the next aircraft (like LAX and SFO).

Since BR is already using the BA lounge, would not the BA lounge adequate for First Class pax? Though it would be hilarious that First Class pax in JX uses the same lounge as BR Business pax.

Flying to PKX would displease KE, DL's preferred partner in that part of the world.

I'm guessing that's a minor consideration compared to its obligation use its route authority. Furthermore, bear in mind that KE is currently facing scrutiny from the (same) DOT wrt its planned takeover of Asiana. Afik, DOT approval is its last remaining hurdle.

I don't know, but I'd think KE is more important to DL's Asia Pacific strategy than the other way around because DL doesn't have a Japanese partner and KE flies to many US cities.

If there's money to be made to PKX, then DL will fly it. DL and KE have a JV so KE would benefit from higher revenue from the PKX flight if DL reallocates the plane from TPE.

Their JV doesn't cover mainland China (not sure about Taiwan).

On a tangentially related note, I believe that a lot of concerns the DOT has about the KE-OZ merger's implications to US consumers are related to the KE-DL JV (it impacts more people than isolated monopoly routes between the US and Korea).

Basically, KE has invested a lot of time and money on the merger, the DOT is its last remaining hurdle, so it makes sense that they will try to appease them.

And, since they are familiar with the DOT's style, they should also appreciate its views on slot squatting and Delta's recent rebuffed attempts to play games with PDX-HND.

If the JV doesn't cover China then more the reason for DL to launch their own flight to PKX. :cool: