Taiwan’s Starlux Airlines signed an order on Wednesday at the Singapore Airshow covering three A330neo airliners and five A350F freighters, powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 7000 and XWB97 engines, respectively. The A330 order builds on the four aircraft already in service, one of which is on show in the static display. Airbus will deliver the new aircraft in 2025/26. The machines will come configured with 28 business class sets and 269 in the economy cabins.
Starlux operates an all-Airbus fleet and sees the A330neo as ideal for its intra-Asia services and to feed passengers into its growing North American passenger services, which started from Taipei to Los Angeles last year and later added San Francisco. Chairman Chang Kuo-Wei said that the airline would add Seattle as a destination this year. A330s operate on the transpacific routes. Chang added that the airline planned to bolster its narrowbody fleet in the near future with further A321neos.
The order for A350Fs makes Starlux the 10th customer to sign up for the freighter, which has already received 50 orders. Starlux’s move into the segment resulted from the large demand for cargo capacity that originates or transits through Taiwan, in particular the large volumes of IT goods. “KW” Chang also noted that the cargo business had remained relatively buoyant during the Covid pandemic.
“With this order, Starlux will become the first Taiwanese airline to operate the next-generation A350F widebody freighter,” said the airline’s CEO, Glenn Chai. “In an era of climate change, the A350F has unbeatable efficiency in terms of fuel burn, CO2 emissions, and economics, offering significant energy-saving and carbon reduction benefits. It not only meets customer requirements for carbon reduction but also aligns with Starlux’s ESG [environmental, social and governance] plan to achieve zero emissions by 2050.”
The airline settled on five as the ideal number of aircraft to start the dedicated freight business, but it expects it to grow. As a consequence, the carrier took options on a further five A350Fs, said Chang.