Starlux Airlines is about to take delivery of its first Airbus A350, and I can’t wait to learn more!
Continue reading: Starlux Airlines Adds Airbus A350-900 To Fleet
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I was about to send you a e-mail about this, but seems you have Starlux on your radar already. I’m really looking forward to what the cabin will look like, I’m very hyped about this airline. I will try to fly their A321N in December (they are opening the Galactic Lounge in Taipei the 6th of November). Btw, the jackets the pilot wears is so damn cool.
Starlux should join Oneworld. The way things are going, they are going to be Cathay Pacific’s replacement.
For the San Francisco Bay Area, Starlux should fly to San Jose instead of San Francisco because most Taiwanese in the Bay Area don’t live near SFO. They manly live in the South Bay, East Bay, and generally communities south of the San Mateo Bridge, areas that are in SJC’s catchment area. It is to my understanding that the Chinese in communities north of the San Mateo Bridge (SF, Oakland, Daly City, Millbrae) are mostly Cantonese speakers with ties to the Hong Kong/Pearl River Delta area, which is perhaps why SFO-HKG was such a big route, much bigger than any of the SFO-Mainland China routes pre-COVID. Also, SFO-HKG was the second busiest international route out of SFO and I believe also the second busiest US-Asia route pair by number of passengers (after LAX-ICN) pre-COVID. Correct me if I’m wrong. It’s probably also why secondary China routes from SFO are lacking compared to LAX, JFK, and YVR and why Hainan decided to fly to SJC instead of SFO. I know because I live on the Peninsula.
"secondary China routes from SFO are lacking compared to LAX, JFK, and YVR"
Prior to the pandemic, SFO was connected to Qingdao, Wuhan, and Chengdu with Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai all having multiple frequencies. And United even tried to make Xi'an and Hangzhou work for a period of time. So I'd say SFO is fine on the secondary city front, even with the strong demand to HKG. I'll be excited to see what comes out of SFO in a couple years as United gets creative with expansion.
Regarding Hainan flying to SJC vs SFO - Hainan started flying to SJC before China relaxed their "one airline, one route" policy (~2015?). They couldn't fly to SFO at the time even if they wanted to because Air China has operated the route for the last several decades, so they only had the option to fly to SJC.