On Friday, September 1st, Taiwan’s China Airlines announced that it is analyzing the feasibility of a new route between its hub in Taipei and Ontario, California.
For reference, Ontario sits about 45 minutes directly east of Los Angeles, and about 30 minutes west of San Bernardino.
The airline asserts that the new route would ease the burden for travelers having to traverse Los Angeles’ busy airport in order to catch their flight. In addition, the airline goes on record to say that the new route would “also dramatically cut travel, immigration and luggage pickup times.”
Presently, China Airlines flies 2x daily between its hub in Taipei (TPE) and Los Angeles (LAX), while competitor EVA Air flies 3x daily between the same airports. The press release didn’t mention if the airline plans to transition one these 2x daily flights to Ontario, or if it intends to start an entirely new route. Seeing as the airline already lags behind competitor EVA by 7x weekly flights, I would see how the latter makes sense. Although I am not ready to rule out the airline just switching one of its daily frequencies to ONT.
China Airlines flies its 777-300ER’s on its frequencies to Los Angeles, which feature 40 flat bed business class seats, 62 premium economy seats, and 256 standard economy seats for a total of 358 seats.
As I mentioned, China Airlines uses these aircraft for both of their frequencies to LAX. I hypothesize that if the airline adds a tertiary route to Ontario, they may use their brand new A350-900 aircraft. It seems like the logical choice, considering ONT would give them little to no connecting traffic, and would mainly be a origin and destination revenue route. In addition, the A350 represents a reduction in 52 total seats when compared to the 777-300ER. Specifically, the China Airlines A350 has 32 flat bed business class seats, 31 premium economy seats, and 243 standard economy seats.
Theres no better aircraft to test the waters with than either the A350 or the 787, and China Airlines has one of them. I would say this aircraft gets utilized on a route to ONT to increase overall capacity to the Los Angeles market.
To the Point!
This is a great new development for Los Angeles travelers. LA is expansive, and its great that an airline is willing to utilize a secondary airport like ONT which will allow travelers to bypass some of the (controlled) chaos at LAX.
Recently, we’ve seen low cost carrier Norwegian utilize a similar strategy across the Atlantic. The airline launched routes to secondary airports like Stewart, NY and Providence, Rhode Island from various destinations in Europe. Both Stewart and Providence are within driving distance of primary cities like New York and Boston, so they are banking on travelers venturing a bit outside the city limits in order to beat the lines or snag a cheaper fare.
Lets hope this route gets finalized! As it would be great news for L.A. travelers looking to venture to Asia.
Have you flown with China Airlines? How was your experience?
*Featured Image Courtesy of KLM.com
Route Guide 
Leave a comment