coolfish1103

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.

moondog

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

tth6133

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.

moondog

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

eponymous_coward

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

lolstebbo

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.

mlin32

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.

tth6133

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.

MSPeconomist

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

tth6133

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.

tth6133

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.

m.y

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.

lolstebbo

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.

tth6133

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.

coolfish1103

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.