Full text of TransAsia article:
"TransAsia Airways (GE, Taipei Sung Shan) is set to end widebody operations at the end of this year the chairman of TransAsia Lin Ming-sheng has disclosed.
Outlining progress made so far under the carrier's restructuring plan, Lin said placements for all four aircraft had been found with two to be disposed of during the current quarter while two would go during the first quarter of next year.
The A330s are currently used on flights to the Japanese cities of Asahikawa, Hakodate, and Sapporo Chitose as well as Shanghai Pudong in China. According to Lin, a strong Yen along with increased competition on the routes has forced a decline in demand.
The loss in widebody capacity has also forced the Taiwanese carrier to defer its plans to serve the United States and its associated territories. According to the China Times, with its Foreign Air Carrier Permit (FACP) in hand, TransAsia had intended to offer charter flights to Guam Int'l and Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands, from early next year. Those plans have, for the meantime, now been scrapped.
Lin said airline executives have also entered into talks with Airbus Industrie (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) over the planned deferral of four A330-800neo, ordered back in December 2014. The aircraft were to have begun arriving from 2018 onwards. No revised delivery timeframes were then revealed.
Once gone, TransAsia's fleet will consist of only narrowbody and regional aircraft which, at present, consists of seven A320-200s, seven A321-100/-200s, and seven ATR72-600s.
The cost savings generated by the removal of the widebody aircraft, coupled with closure of LCC V air (ZV, Taipei Taoyuan), is expected to turn TransAsia Airways profitable by the early next year.
Lin also noted that his airline has begun to step out of the shadow of the fatal crashes of July 2014 and in February 2015, which claimed ninety-one lives. Thus far, he said, the company has fulfilled sixty-seven of the recommendations as specified by the US-based Flight Safety Foundation, and has been incident-free for the past eighteen months under the Civil Aeronautics Administration's (CAA) supervision."