China Airlines, Taiwan’s largest carrier, joins SkyTeam. Big impact in crucial North Asian markets

The SkyTeam alliance has taken another step forward in cementing its place in the fast-growing North Asian aviation market by adding China Airlines, Taiwan's largest carrier and the world's seventh largest cargo carrier (by international scheduled FTKs - or eighth largest by total system FTKs), to the fold on 28-Sep-2011. China Airlines' entry comes just three months after China Eastern Airlines and Shanghai Airlines joined the grouping in Jun-2011. China Airlines will be the first Taiwanese carrier to join a global alliance, with rival EVA Air remaining unaligned.

China Airlines will become the 15th member of the SkyTeam airline alliance (see Appendix for full list of alliance groupings). By joining SkyTeam, the Taiwanese carrier will expand its international coverage nine-fold via codesharing to 926 destinations in 173 countries across 14,000 services from the current 1010 destinations in 29 countries.