China Airlines Is Considering Adding Flights To Ontario, California

Because LAX landing cost is too high

Ontario lacks the facilities and transport infrastructure
immigration is not even in one of the main terminals
There is a huge investment in LAX - a new midfield satellite , terminal renovations and automated people mover
A service to ONT would be entirely dependent on local traffic and more than likely very low yield
CI at LAX has skyteam partners and lounge access
My only experience of ONT is flying over it en-route to LAX. Never had any issues at LAX in more than 50 times I've passed through customs and immigration over the years
It would be a very hard sell.
Ontario ?? Toronto ??
It would need to be sold as LA
If only it had a train connection as good as that at Tokyo Narita which is equally distant from the central core

China Airlines should see if they could exercise 5th freedom rights and operate Ontario - New York. They could then kill 2 birds with one stone.

Ontario's a super convenient airport if you're in the area - even before pre-check, I never had wait times of more than 5 minutes at security. That said, its feasibility for China Airlines is questionable as you describe.

@Anthony Adames , Is 5th freedom cover domestic flight in foreign country? I thought it has to be from second country to third country.

Better off adding flights to Toronto, Ontario instead. Lots of connecting traffic onward to Southeast Asia.

If this were to actually happen, I could see them downgauging both LAX flights to the A350, and picking up the slack with 3x/weekly A350 to ONT.

Lu,

What about Qantas operating their SYD-LAX-JFK and then reverse flight here in the US? Couldn't China Airlines do the same with the ONT-JFK route?

Could be a spy plane. I hope the FAA blocks this .

I think CI has 3x daily from LAX on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

It sounds like they're trying to shake down the local airport authority for massive subsidies andhoping this press release lights a fire

@Justin Spy plane from Taiwan? To Ontario? What are they going to spy on? The low prices at Ontario outlets?

I though the title meant Toronto, Ontario and LAX/SFO, California

If you live in Southern California you will know that a vest majority of Chinese/Taiwanese/Hong Kong lives in the San Gabriel Valley, east of Los Angels. Getting to Ontario Airport is easier for many than to LAX. It is also can be accessed from Orange County and San Diego without too much difficulty, since the traffics are not as bad as going to LAX. Recently read in local Chinese newspaper that other airlines from Mainland China are considering Ontario, because it will be counted as a new destination, because only so many mainland airlines can have flights to LAX. There is no need for connection flights to other cities. Go look at the population number of Chinese in Southern California. Is at least more than half a million and probably more than that now.

ONT traffic is way down, thanks to LAX prior ownership. They have plenty of room to expand and hopefully this is the beginning of a.n international expansion.

I would fly this since I am out in Riverside area a lot and getting to LAX with traffic is very bad depending on time of day and where you are coming from!

Who knows? They could just add 1x weekly to ONT on an A350 or something, it doesn't necessarily have to be a daily or 3x weekly thing. Google flights show 14x weekly LAX on China and 21x weekly LAX on EVA, so I doubt China would be cutting from its LAX flights. a 1x weekly does sound like a viable option, as the majority of the people filling these planes are for leisure and doesn't need that much of flexibility. If marketed well for the East Asian population in the region, I can see this somehow working out, rather than having those in the San Gabriel Valley go all the way to LAX.

@Steve - The QF SYD-LAX-JFK flight can't legally sell tickets just for the LAX-JFK segment. The flight works for them since passengers can connect at LAX for QF flights to/from BNE and MEL, effectively letting them offer JFK passengers service to three Australian destinations at the same time, which, along with being able to sell tickets between SYD and LAX as well, makes the flight viable.

There's no second Taiwanese destination with enough demand to let China Airlines operate a flight to/from ONT, so with a TOE-ONT-JFK flight the ONT-JFK segment would have to carry enough JFK-Taiwan passengers to cover the expense on its own. And there are already many airlines offering a one-stop JFK-TPE flight with convenient connections at ICN, HKG, etc.

If they discontinue one of their LAX routes for this, does that mean they would operate a 777 to Ontario, or would they assign the 777 to an existing A350 route and instead use the A350 to operate the route?

I think the likelihood of this happening is pretty low, but it would be pretty nice if it does. In the 80s and 90s, China Airlines was basically the only international carrier that used Haneda in Tokyo due to political concerns. But the Haneda's proximity to Tokyo metro actually gave China Airlines a nice advantage.

What if CI fly from TPE to JFK via ONT and sector between ONT and JFK can be sold only by delta airline which is one of skyteam member as well. I mean such sector become codeshare with delta. China airline can't sell this sector air ticket. We'd have great transcon business and premium economy run by china airline staff not delta.

Pretty good idea to offer at least a few times a week. There is a large Taiwanese population east of sgv in rancho Cucamonga and eastvale areas as well as large population in the area that will probbaly do a direct transfer to other s.e.a. Countries. In certain times of the day its almost two hours to get to lax while its maybe 20 min to ONT. That being said, it's a lower income area conpared to lax so yields will probbaly be lower. I'm also thinking about how arrivals would work. Secondary Intl airports often times don't have enough kiosks clearing arriving pax so you might have to wait a long time arriving.

As a taiwanese residence living in orange county, i would welcome this in a heart beat. going to ontario sounds 100X better than going to lax simply because of the airport traffic

I'm flying out of Ontario tonight for the first time. I'm looking forward to it since LAX is so far away. They should also consider an ONT-EWR route as there are no airlines that fly non-stop from Newark, NJ to Ontario. This would be very convenient for many in the New York metropolitan area.