oneWorld growing more and more: Starlux ready to join alliance
Starlux is one of the youngest companies not only in Taiwan but around the world. It began its own [...]
Oneworld
TPE
Starlux is one of the youngest companies not only from Taiwan but from around the world. It began its operations in late January 2020, just a few weeks before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic; despite the somewhat unfortunate timing, has managed to grow and not by a small amount.
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It currently operates a fleet of 24 aircraft - 13 Airbus A321s, 5 A330neo (in the -900 variant) and 6 A350-900s - and from its hub in Taipei (TPE) flies to 27 destinations in Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and the USA. We are talking about this young company because in the past few hours the CEO, Glenn Chai, made a very interesting announcement: as Focus Taiwan reports, Chai-during a conference with shareholders-announced that By 2025, Starlux will submit the application for membership at theoneWorld alliance.
There are 3 companies in Taiwan: EVA Air, China Airlines and, indeed, Starlux. The former is a member of Star Alliance while the latter is a member of SkyTeam: thus Starlux's choice to join oneWorld makes complete sense. There is, however, a but: it is not certain that the membership application will be accepted. Cathay Pacific, in fact, which is a founding member of OW, could exercise the right of veto vis-à-vis Starlux's membership: considering the geographical proximity of Taiwan and Hong Kong and also counting the markets in which both companies compete, it is not so unlikely that CX would oppose Starlux's entry.
At present, oneWorld - founded in 1998 by American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas - has 13 members: In addition to the founders, Alaska Airlines, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, and SriLankan Airlines are also members. The number of members, however, is expected to rise: As we wrote a few weeks ago, within this year. Oman Air will join oneWorld while Fiji Airways will follow suit in 2025.
