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Air Canada has high hopes for Taiwan market: executive

2017-06-10
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Taipei, June 9 (CNA) A senior official at Air Canada, which on Friday resumed its Vancouver-Taipei services after a 14-year hiatus, said it has high hopes for the route as the carrier tries to elevate its market presence in Asia.

Yves Dufresne, vice president of the company's Alliances and Regulatory Affairs, said the carrier has always wanted back into Taiwan after it pulled out of the market in 2003, due to what Dufresne described as "a lack of appropriate plane models."

The use of the Boeing 747-400, which has a seating capacity of 400, was not economically viable back then, Dufresne said, which was the main reason Air Canada decided to withdraw from Taiwan.

However, with the introduction of the Boeing 787, which accommodates 300 passengers and is better tailored to the Taiwan market, Dufresne said he is confident that the new operation model will be successful.

"(The aircraft) is more geared toward to this size of market," he told CNA in a recently concluded general meeting of the International Air Transport Association in Mexico.

Bringing Taiwan back to the Asia-Pacific network is also part of the company's ambition to extend its reach in this part of the world, Dufresne said, adding that the airline has set the goal of becoming one of the world's top 10 carriers by 2020.

"Asia is a very important market for us," he said, adding that the carrier saw its transport capacity in the region grow by 20 percent from 2015 to 2016.

Besides daily operations in Taiwan, Air Canada is launching a new route from Vancouver to Nagoya, Japan as well as adding new flights to the Vancouver-Shanghai route, in an effort to make the carrier more visible in Asia, according to Dufresne.

Dufresne also said he believes that Air Canada will be more competitive than its Taiwanese rivals -- China Airlines and EVA Airways -- which will also add extra flights to take their services to Vancouver from five to seven per week from June 13 and 15, respectively.

Air Canada has better access to North American cities, which provides both tourists and people visiting relatives or friends with more options, especially if they plan to travel to second-tier cities, he said.

The connecting traffic service will become a source of the airline's competitive edge, said Dufresne.

According to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Toronto, a de facto Taiwan consulate-general, bilateral travel exchanges have increased rapidly in recent years.

Over 100,000 Canadians traveled to Taiwan and 93,000 Taiwanese to Canada in 2016, a 17 percent and 31 percent year-on-year growth, respectively. 

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