China Airlines suspends Taipei-Nashville service

CHINA Airlines has suspended its cargo service between Taipei (Taiwan) and Nashville (US). The carrier has operated a 747-400F on the route, six days a week, since 2001. However, the average tonnage per flight has drop significantly this year.

“The decision to close the Nashville station after eight years was based on projection’s for air import shipments from Asia for the third and fourth quarters of 2009,” said Ron Pierce at China Airlines’s Nashville office. “Air cargo shipments have increased in the last two months, but air shipments to and from Asia remain weak at this time.”

A decline in business from computer supplier Dell was one cause for the slump but another was the ban on flying directly to the US from mainland China “where most of the inbound freight is coming from now,” Pierce said. “We can fly freight directly from the US to China, but not from China to here, but the cargo mostly is coming from China, not going to China.”

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