China Airlines (CAL), one of the leading international carriers in Taiwan, said on Friday that it will raise wages by 3 percent on average for its employees and issue year-end bonuses equivalent to three months of salary.
CAL said the wage hike and the year-end bonus payout come after negotiations with the company's union, and the two proposals still have to be approved by its board of directors.
The proposals came after the carrier reported NT$3.62 billion (US$118 million) in net profit for the first three quarters of last year, an increase of 132.64 percent from a year earlier, with earnings per share of NT$0.6, up NT$0.32 from the previous year, at a time when Taiwan has eased border controls amid COVID-19, boosting the tourism industry.
In the nine-month period, CAL posted NT$111.78 billion in consolidated sales, up 21.93 percent from a year earlier, the carrier's data showed.
According to CAL, eased border controls in Taiwan pushed up revenue generated from passenger flights by 251.3 percent in the first nine months of last year over the same period of the previous year, with major revenue sources being destinations in North America, Southeast Asia and Europe.
CAL has forecast the global passenger flight market will return to pre-pandemic levels in 2024, while the Asia Pacific region is expected to see a return to the pre-pandemic level in 2025 with slower border easing.
Amid optimism over a recovery in the passenger flight market, CAL said the airline will raise its number of flights by 30 percent in early 2023.
CAL's year-end bonus payout is in line with its local competitor EVA Airways, which also announced last week it would give employees year-end bonuses equivalent to three months' salary. However, EVA Air has not announced any wage hikes for employees.
EVA Air also cited a recovery in the airline business as the reason for the year-end bonus payout. In the first nine months of last year, the carrier turned a profit, posting NT$1.21 in earnings per share compared with a net loss per share of NT$0.11 in the same period of 2021.
Last week, StarLux Airlines, the newest carrier in Taiwan, announced it would give employees one-month salary as a year-end bonus even though the airline continues to lose money.
Since its establishment on May 2, 2018, StarLux has lost a cumulative NT$11.1 billion as of the end of September, an increase from NT$9.598 billion in losses at the end of June.
The carrier said the year-end bonus payment was intended as an incentive to its employees to work hard at a time when revenue is rising significantly as COVID-19 border controls are lifted.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel