Starlux Impacted By Airbus Delays

Both Airbus and Boeing are currently informing customers of delays in aircraft deliveries. As such, customers are now being impacted on different levels.

Starlux, a luxury airline out of Taiwan, says that its long-haul operations will be significantly impacted by delays in acquiring aircraft from European plane maker Airbus.

Starlux is an all-Airbus operator. Per Cirium data, the airline has a fleet comprising 20 aircraft with 16 on order. It operates Airbus A350-900s, A321neos and finally, Airbus A330neos now though it remains unable to continue expanding its network further than Asia.

Starlux was one of the few airlines to emerge from the pandemic and be a bright spot, launching their operations in 2020. Three years later and their network consists of essential destinations such as Tokyo, Singapore and Bangkok. In March, per Cirium data, the airline had 36,752 seats from Tokyo to Taipei, meanwhile 33,823 from Taipei to Bangkok.

However, for the newly launched airline, it’s the United States where it eyes further expansion. These were made possible with the addition of Airbus A350s, which is slated to welcome many more in the future. However, these plans have been put under fire following Airbus’ delays in getting aircraft to customers.

An exclusive interview with Reuters highlighted that while the airline wants to fly to New York, it will solely depend on aircraft deliveries. The primary issue for Starlux is something that’s hurting customers globally. The inability to act on demand and operational plans due to the lack of availability of planes or delays is real pressure.

Starlux is a matter of days away from launching its Los Angeles service, which will see them dip into the U.S. market for the first time since its launch. An A350-900 will feature on this service. However, Starlux has bigger ambitions than just servicing the West Coast; as mentioned before, New York is also in their plans.

Starlux says they’re communicating with Airbus to get the aircraft as soon as possible, but that isn’t coming soon enough for the Taiwanese airline due to production constraints.