Story ID: GPtransasia11222016
Taiwan’s TransAsia Ceases Operations
By: Gregory Polek
Caption: Carrier fails to recover from deteriorating traffic and rising costs 
Word Count: 258
Struggling Taiwanese regional airline TransAsia Airways ceased operations on Tuesday, a week before a November 29 deadline to repay convertible bonds. The airline canceled all of its 84 scheduled flights after directors determined at an extraordinary board meeting it would likely not recover from its deteriorating financial condition.

During a press conference in Taipei later in the day, TransAsia chairman Vincent Lin explained that although the company could have paid back the maturing bonds, it nevertheless decided to dissolve the company when the airline’s assets still exceeded its liabilities, ensuring what he called “the necessary protection to the interests of passengers, staff and business partners,” according to report from Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA).  

In business since 1951, TransAsia saw its fortunes deteriorate dramatically over the past few years as two separate fatal accidents involving ATR 72s in July 2014 and January 2015 tarnished its reputation and contributed to falling load factors. Taiwan’s Aviation Safety Council blamed the more recent crash, in which 43 people died, on the pilots’ failure to identify and properly respond to an engine failure and a range of contributory factors including insufficient oversight of the airline by Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration and TransAsia’s deficient flight operations and management processes.

More recently, the rising price of fuel and a strengthening U.S. dollar conspired to damage the airline’s cost structure, making recovery all the more unlikely.

Meanwhile, government officials have launched an investigation into charges of insider trading at the airline, reported the CNA.