Starlux is delivering impressively premium PaxEx aboard its widebodies. Image: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren
This isn’t an accident. Starlux officials told CNN in a December 2019 pre-launch interview that all those amenities equals a higher cost: “we offer exquisite service items, so the fare will be slightly higher than the other airlines.”
Conscious capacity choices
Second, while some industry watchers see the explosion of service to Seattle be an unsustainable glut of seats, Starlux disagrees.
“I think the capacity put into this route is the still rather small,” Starlux chief strategy officer Simon Liu told Runway Girl Network in a recent interview.
“We’re not only targeting traffic between Taipei and Seattle,” he said. “Look into the entire network in Southeast Asia and combine the population between Southeast Asia and North America. It is huge.”
Indeed, Starlux’s intra-Asia network, which began in earnest in 2021 after a Covid pause, leans heavy into Southeast Asia. Japan is also well represented, rounding out the whose who of popular destinations in Asia for Americans.
Codeshare beneifts
Third, Seattle isn’t just about Seattle. It’s also about Alaska; Alaska Airlines, that is. The codeshare is Starlux’s first, enabling passengers on both carriers to book itineraries on either carrier from either website.
“It helps us connect our passengers from Seattle to more than 100 cities in the US, making us very confident of our operation in Seattle”, Liu told RGN.
Though he declined to give precise numbers, Alaska, he said, has been a huge help in filling out its nascent Seattle flights, both in terms of cash booking and mileage redemptions. The first flight to Taipei went out with a 99% load factor, and RGN’s flight with Starlux a few days later was similarly full.
Liu said the partnership has seen Seattle’s forward bookings already outperforming both San Francisco and Los Angeles, both of which have been running daily service for months.
Whether or not Starlux will formally join an alliance is not currently clear. Oneworld would make a lot of sense, but Liu said only that the airline was looking at alliances carefully.
As for where Starlux will expand to next, Liu said a few more Southeast Asia destinations are in the pipeline, including Jakarta. North American plans remain more hazy, or at least if Liu knows, he’s keeping it close to the vest.
“Everybody talks about New York, and New York is under our radar. But we are also looking into many destinations,” he said, before rattling off cities like Chicago, Dallas, D.C., and Phoenix.
Many of those cities are dependent on the carrier receiving more airplanes, something Starlux like many others, has struggled with of late.
“Overall, the aircraft delivery status with both Boeing and Airbus is getting challenging,” he said. “We do what we can, build our plan with more flexibility.” But delays on building out the network are inevitable, he said.
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Featured image credited to Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren
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Publish date : 2024-08-26 00:32:00
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