CAL to Open Three New All-Cargo Flight Routes Destined to China

China Airlines (CAL), Taiwan’s largest carrier, announced Friday that it will open all-cargo flight services between Taiwan’s Taoyuan airport and the cities of Xiamen, Nanjing and Fuzhou this month to meet rising demand from China.

CAL will launch a weekly all-cargo flight between Taiwan and Xiamen in Fujian province on Sept. 4 and one to Nanjing in Jiangsu province on Sept. 11, the company said.

The carrier will also begin twice-weekly service to Fuzhou, also in Fujian province before the end of September, which will bring its total weekly cargo flights between the two countries to 10 a week, and two more flights are planned to unspecified destinations in the future.

The cargo flights to Xiamen and Nanjing will operate every Saturday and the two per week to Fuzhou have been scheduled every Wednesday and Saturday.

The Boeing 747-400F aircraft CAL will use on the routes will ship mainly electronic appliances, textile products, and shoes, the company said.

A spokeswoman for the airline said CAL is expanding its cargo operations in China to take advantage of increasing demand there, with its focus clearly on shipping goods out of what many consider the world’s factory.

Listed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as one of the world’s 10 biggest international cargo carriers, CAL currently operates cargo flights to Shanghai four times a week and to Guangzhou twice a week.

Since Taiwan and China opened direct air cargo links in August 2009, CAL has transported 56,000 tons of goods from China to Taiwan, accounting for 10 percent of the company’s total cargo shipments.

It has had an average load factor of 75 percent on its cargo flights connecting Taiwan and China to date.

CAL’s chief rival, EVA Air, currently has four cargo flights a week between Taiwan and China — three to Shanghai and one to Guangzhou, according to a schedule on its website.