Taiwanese airline Starlux inaugurated its new Macau-Taipei route today, with the first flight departing Taipei at 7:25am and arriving at the Macau International Airport (MIA) at 9:30am.
The company will provide three direct daily Taipei-Macau flights departing from the Taoyuan International Airport at 7:30 am, 1:05 pm and 6:50 pm, and lasting about two hours, with return flights departing from Macau every day at 10:30 am, 4:10 pm and 9:40 pm.
The company’s chairman himself, Chang Kuo-wei, flew one of the first round trips between the two cities.
‘As a brand new carrier, we will fulfill our responsibility to provide safe and high-quality service. At the same time, we will direct every effort to ensure the airline industry in Taiwan will better coordinate with our government and other airlines,” the Starlux chairman noted,’ the company chairman – who did not attend the ceremony in Macau – said in a statement.
The airline’s new Airbus A321neo aircraft carries 188 seats, eight in business class and 180 in economy class, although the airline labels itself a ‘high-end’ company.
The company’s special assistant to the chairman, Cho Pue-Yue said to Macau News Agency (MNA) that the city’s geographical location in the Pearl River Delta economic region showed great potential for the airline.
However, the airline opens the route in a time where the region is on the grip of a pneumonia outbreak that could impact visitation numbers.
Nevertheless, Cho indicated tickets were at least sold out for the first day in operations, with Starlux advertising competitive prices for more up-scale services provided.
According to the Taiwan Tourism Office in Hong Kong, Taiwan is already Macau’s fourth-largest source of tourists, with 1.06 million Taiwanese citizens have traveled to the city in 2018.
With Starlux now establishing this route, there will be a total of 290 weekly flights connecting the Macau and Taipei, up from the previous 250 flights, with the airline joining flights from Tigerasia, EVA Air and Air Macau.
In the first stages the company will provide three routes connecting its Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport hub to Macau; Danang, Vietnam; and Penang, Malaysia, with future plans to establish long-haul routes to Europe by 2022 and to North America by 2024.
The Marketing Director of Macau International Airport Co. Ltd, Eric Fong, also stated that he hoped more destinations in Taiwan could be linked to Macau.
