TransAsia Airways (1951–2016): History of the Airline

TransAsia Airways no longer flies. It stopped in 2016.

TransAsia Airways was Taiwan's first private airline, founded in 1951 as Foshing Airlines, and later grew into the country's third-largest carrier. Two fatal ATR 72 crashes in 2014 and 2015, heavy losses and an insider-trading probe led its board to dissolve the company on 22 November 2016.

How it started

According to Wikipedia, the company was formed on 21 May 1951 as Foshin Transport Corp., known in English as Foshing Airlines. It was the first private civil airline in Taiwan, flying Taipei–Hualien–Taitung–Kaohsiung, and it also acted as local agent and ground handler for foreign airlines.

On 16 October 1958 the management stopped domestic flying to concentrate on agency work. It set up an airline catering business at Songshan Airport in 1966. After a restructure in 1983, domestic flights resumed in 1988. Simple Flying reports that the first ATR 72 arrived in 1991. The carrier took the name TransAsia Airways in 1992 and began international charters to places such as Phuket and Yangon, with its first jet, an Airbus A320, arriving the same year.

The heyday

By the mid-1990s scheduled international flights linked Taiwan with Macau and Surabaya. The airline became a mixed fleet of ATR turboprops on domestic routes and Airbus jets, including four A330-300s that joined between November 2012 and November 2015. It listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 2011. Global News reports that chairman Vincent Lin, in post from 2010, added about two dozen routes to mainland China and other Asian cities after the listing, although a few were later dropped.

It became Taiwan's third-largest airline after China Airlines and EVA Air, FlightGlobal notes. In 2014 it launched a low-cost subsidiary, V Air, which began flying on 17 December 2014 from Taoyuan, according to Wikipedia.

What went wrong

Flight 222, 23 July 2014. An ATR 72 flying Kaohsiung to Magong hit buildings while trying to land in bad weather. Simple Flying says 48 of the 58 on board died. A detailed account describes a shortage of ATR pilots at the time.
Flight 235, 4 February 2015. An ATR 72-600 crashed shortly after leaving Taipei Songshan. The crew reported an engine failure, but the working engine was shut down by mistake (Simple Wikipedia). Simple Flying puts the death toll at 43.
Financial strain. The two accidents caused a financial crisis, though the airline kept flying for almost two more years. In August 2016 the board decided to fold V Air back into the parent, and V Air stopped flying on 1 October 2016 (CAPA). Sources differ slightly: CAPA says V Air's last service was 30 September, Wikipedia gives 1 October.
The final weeks. Chairman Lin said the airline lost more than NT$22 billion in the first three quarters of 2016 and that it had been seeking strategic investors until the day before the shutdown (FlightGlobal).

The last flight

No final flight is documented in the sources we found. The end came abruptly. After a hastily called board meeting on 22 November 2016, the airline said it would dissolve and suspend all flights from that day, according to AFP via GDN. Chairman Lin and two executives were questioned by prosecutors that morning after the stock exchange flagged apparent insider trading. AFP gave the fleet as 16 passenger aircraft serving 27 destinations, with 1,795 staff.

The Taipei Times noted that the airline had announced a one-day suspension on the Monday afternoon without first asking permission from the Civil Aeronautics Administration. Lin said the company was dissolving while its assets still exceeded its liabilities, so that passengers and employees could be protected.

What happened next

Shareholders formalised the dissolution on 12 January 2017 (CAPA). The airline then went into bankruptcy and lost its licence in 2018, according to Wikipedia. The Taipei Times editorial expected the fleet of about 20 aircraft to be sold without difficulty. We found no source naming a successor airline, and the sources we checked do not say where individual aircraft or staff went.

Fact file