Taipei, April 23 (CNA) EVA Airways (EVA Air), one of Taiwan’s leading international carriers, will begin direct flights to Dallas on Oct. 3, giving it a ninth destination in North America to which it operates direct flights from Taiwan.
In a statement, EVA Air said Tuesday that it will provide three round-trip flights a week to Dallas, making it the only Taiwanese carrier to fly to two cities in Texas.
Though it is just starting passenger flight services to Dallas this year, the carrier has operated cargo flights to the city since 1998.
According to EVA Air, Dallas, the fourth largest metropolitan area in the U.S., houses many multinational businesses, including more than 20 of the Fortune Global 500 that have established headquarters there, and Taiwanese investment has also been drawn to the city.
EVA Air President Clay Sun (孫嘉明) said in the statement that with a growing number of enterprises setting up footholds there, the city has become a major business hub in the U.S., boasting a booming economy and a growing population.
Dallas Fort Worth International Airport handles the third largest volume of passengers in the U.S., Sun said, and EVA Air also wants to serve passengers and tourists who transit through the city to head to other American cities or destinations in Latin America.
EVA Air said the carrier will use the long-range wide-body Boeing 777-300ERs on the new route.
The flight, coded BR50, will depart from Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport at 7:10 p.m. on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays and arrive at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport at 7:40 p.m., the airline said.
On the return journey, flight BR49 will leave Dallas at 10:50 p.m. and arrive back at Taipei at 4:05 a.m. two days later.
The early morning arrival in Taipei of the return flight will enable passengers to access the carrier’s broad network into Asia and transfer to other cities in the region, the airline said.
The Dallas route will give EVA Air nine destinations in North America: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Houston, Chicago, Vancouver, Toronto, and Dallas.
The new route was added as EVA Air continues to benefit from a rebound in outbound travel post COVID-19.
In 2024, EVA Air posted a record net profit of NT$30.4 billion (US$935 million), up 31.6 percent from a year earlier, with earnings per share of NT$5.37, compared with NT$4.01 the previous year.
EVA Air served 13.16 million passengers in 2024, up 16.8 percent from a year earlier, with the average load factor — an industry metric for measuring the percentage of passenger capacity used — hitting 82.6 percent.
In the first quarter of this year, EVA Air posted its highest-ever sales of NT$54.94 billion for the January-March period, up 2.85 percent from a year earlier.
