Mandarin Airlines - History

History

Mandarin Airlines was established on June 1, 1991, and was originally a joint venture of China Airlines (66%) and the Koo's Development Corporation (33%); the names of both investors formed the Chinese name of Mandarin Airlines. Mandarin's establishment had much to do with the political status of Taiwan. At the time, Mandarin Airlines' parent company, China Airlines, still carried the national flag of the Republic of China on its livery as a symbol of the continued existence of the Republic of China government. Because of this, the People's Republic of China used its influence to block any country that it had formal diplomatic relationship with from allowing China Airlines to establish routes to it, such as Canada and Australia. However, PRC objected less to ROC airlines that did not carry the national flag from flying international routes, thus Mandarin Airlines was established to take advantage of this, while preserving China Airlines' role as the flag carrier of the Republic of China.

On 16 October 1991, Mandarin Airlines started operations with direct flights from Taipei to Sydney in Australia. The next step was the opening of a direct air route to Vancouver in Canada on 7 December 1991. Thus, Mandarin Airlines became ROC's first airline to fly direct to Australia and Canada. The China Trust Group pulled its investment in Mandarin Airlines on 31 October 1992, turning the airline into a company virtually wholly owned by China Airlines (90.05%) by December 1992. Also, Mandarin Airlines' role was changed to be a primary domestic and short-range intra-regional airline, after parent China Airlines was able to re-establish its emphasis on international routes, due to it changed to a new livery that did not include the national flag, and thus faced less objection from PRC.

On 8 August 1999, China Airlines formally merged its subsidiary, Mandarin Airlines, with Formosa Airlines under the Mandarin name. Mandarin took over Formosa's domestic operations and aircraft while Mandarin's fleet and most of its international flights were transferred to China Airlines. In early 2000, the airline bought 5 Dornier 228 from Uni Air to fly out-lying routes. These planes were sold to Daily Air in 2005, a helicopter carrier in Taiwan which recently won the bid to fly these money-losing routes.

Mandarin Airlines is owned by China Airlines (93.99%) and has 630 employees (as of March 2007).