Flights to Taipei - How to fly to Taiwan

(Updated 2nd half 2012)

There are less direct flights to Taipei today than 10 years ago. At that time you had more choices to fly directly to Taiwan without any stop in a major hub such as Hong Kong or Singapore.

Recently the situation is improving again, because of the several wisa weaver agreements that Taiwan signed with many countries. That increased the number of visitors from and to Taiwan, so the flights too.

At the same time budget carriers have appeared and are beginning to link Taipei with different Asian capitals.

You can find more about them in this page about cheap flights to Taipei.

You can fly directly to Taipei from a few European and American airports but only with the two major Taiwanese carriers, China Airlines and Eva Air, and with the Dutch carrier KLM.

First of all, where do you want to land?

Taiwan has 3 international airport:

• Taoyuan International Airport (former Chiang Kai-shek, located 40 km SW of Taipei) - TPE
• Taichung - RMQ
• Kaohsiung - KHH

You will probably arrive in Taoyuan. Kaohsiung and Taichung have only regional traffic with Hong Kong, South East Asia and, from Dec 2008, with mainland China. Unless your final destination is the remote east coast or one of the offshore islands, you may want to reach it by land from Taoyuan Airport. Taoyuan Airport is just 15 minutes from the High Speed Railway station. Instead the busy Taipei Domestic Airport, Songshan, is in the opposite part of the city, more than 1 hour away from Taoyuan Airport. The new High Speed Railway is a very easy and comfortable way to travel between the main Taiwanese cities.

Flights to Taipei - timing and seasons

If you can, avoid to travel to/from Taiwan during the Chinese New Year! That is the busiest time of the year.

Taiwanese expats are going back home to reunite with their families. At the same time other Taiwanese take advantage of vacations to go abroad.

Flights to Taipei are fully booked and expensive 7-10 days before and after the Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year date changes each year from around the middle of January to the middle of February.

Other days to be avoided are during important trade fairs in Taipei. These periods of course change every year, you can use online services as TripAdvisor to check prices and availability for a specific period of time.

Surprisingly Christmas is not a bad time for traveling because it is not a public holiday in Taiwan.

In summer a typhoon can disrupt your schedule, but normally just for a day or two.

Flights to Taipei: China Airlines

China Airlines is the national airline of Taiwan and is not to be confused with Air China - that is the carrier of the People's Republic of China.

China Airlines had a terrible safety record until the late 90's. It seems it improved a lot, both with safety and quality of the service, and now ranks 4 stars with the airlines rating system Skytrax.

I traveled several times with China Airlines between 2002 and 2005, at the beginning of my stay in Taiwan. In my experience it is a nice Asian carrier, I enjoyed traveling with them. China Airlines boasts direct connections between Taipei and:

• Amsterdam
• Auckland (from January 2011)
• Brisbane
• Frankfurt
• Los Angeles
• New York
• Roma
• San Francisco
• Sidney
• Vienna
• Vancouver.

Flights to Taipei: Eva Air

Eva Air is a private company and belongs to the Evergreen conglomerate. Eva Air began its business in 1991 and enjoys a good reputation for safety and service quality, it ranks 4 stars as China Airlines.

Eva Air is an interesting choice for long flights from Europe or North America because of its "Premium Economy" seats.

"Premium Economy" tickets offer bigger seats with economy class meals and service. The ticket price is therefore between economy and business fares. Eva Air thinks (probably rightfully so) that passengers are more interested, and willing to pay for, having extra space than all the bells and whistles of a full business class. Eva Air provides flights to Taipei from the following Australian, European and American cities:

• San Francisco
• Los Angeles
• Vancouver
• Seattle
• Newark
• Amsterdam
• London
• Paris
• Vienna
• Brisbane.

Flights to Taipei: KLM

KLM does not need any introduction.

KLM is the only European airline to have maintained direct flights to Taipei.

For years KLM scheduled a daily flight between Amsterdam Schiphol and Taoyuan International Airport. This flight made a stop in Bangkok.

Recently (2012) they changed route. Now they have a flight (KL 807/KL 808) bound to Taipei and then Manila.

The section from Amsterdam to Taipei is no stop.

KLM is a well established airline with a good safety record and with experienced flight personnel. They provide a service without some "Asian" frills but friendly and substantial.

Recently I have been flying a lot on this flight to Amsterdam. It is a good solution for a direct flight to Europe (if you don't have a connecting flight in Hong Kong or Singapore you save a lot of time indeed). One pitfall is that this flight is always full (a lot of people travel to/from Manila) and the seats are quite small and not so comfortable. Their Premium Economy (to which you can upgrade also during the flight, if available) offers seats with just a few centimeters more for leg space but no increase in width.

Flights to Taipei: other good airlines

I would also consider to fly to Taiwan with one of the following carriers:

• Singapore Airlines (Hub: Singapore)
• Cathay Pacific (Hub: Hong Kong)
• Malaysia Airlines (Hub: KualaLumpur)

They are simply among the best. All of them are 5 stars airlines.

There are other good reasons. If, for example,you are flying from Southern Europe (Milan or Barcelona) you will have to normally connect through one of the european major hubs: Frankfurt or London Heathrow or the awful Paris CDG.

So you will waste time (because you are flying backwards many extra miles) and your experience could be not so good in those overcrowded hubs. You have higher chances to lose your luggage too (it happened to me two times in Paris).

You can instead fly directly to Singapore from Milan or Barcelona and from there take your connection to Taipei. You are going to the right direction from the beginning. Normally they will not lose your luggage in Singapore Changi Airport.

I flew with all these 3 carriers and I especially like Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific.. Their flight entertainment, so important in a long flight, is the best. The ground services are very good too.

If your stop in Singapore is long, there you can find a convenient Transit Hotel, a lot of restaurants and shops, places to relax ....

Hong Kong airport is really supergood too, with lot of space and easy to navigate trough.

A new entry: Turkish Airlines

During the years 2010 and 2011 I have been flying many times with Turkish Airlines

Their hub is in Instanbul, in a very convenient location between Europe and Asia. From Instanbul they have flights to a lot of destinations.

They don't provide direct flights to Taipei but to other Far East airport as Hong Kong, Seoul, Beijing, Shangai, Guanzhou and Singapore.

Turkish Airlines, that is an ambitious airline that is vigorously trying to expand their business, scores at least three very good points, in my experience.

• Their fares are normally cheaper than the average.
• The food is really fresh and superbly cooked - long flights have a real cook onboard!
• Their Premium (Comfort) Economy is truly exceptional, not much less than a good business class, both for food and comfort.

In short, I really suggest you to have a look to them.

Flights to Taipei - Tips and Tricks

How to find the most convenient flights to Taipei? Compare, compare and compare. Airlines tickets is the most crazy market in the world. Prices fluctuate wildly from day to day.

On January a return ticket to Taiwan from Europe or North America will cost you about 1,500 US dollars, in March the same ticket will cost 1,000 dollars.The best flight is not always the most expensive.

You don't need to buy tickets on the Internet, if you don't feel comfortable or you need the kind of service that only the travel agency can give you.

Anyway you can check the online services to have an estimate of prices and availability.

You can follow this plan:

1. Check with an online aggregator first. I normally use TripAdvisor . Their site is very slick to use and, especially, has a lot of travellers reviews. tripAdvisor will search for the best deals many others online services (including Expedia).
2. Found a deal? Now check on the airline own website or ring them. They can be your best bet. Don't forget to inquire directly the budget airlines as Jetstar as normally they don't sell their tickets through third parties.
3. You may also want to check your travel agency. Who knows? Now at least you know what the baseline is.

Good luck with your flight to Taipei ... please come to visit again this website for updates.

See also ...

Cheap Flights to Taipei - a whole page just about budget flights to Taiwan.