CHARM OFFENSIVE - Orient Aviation

c o v e r s t o r yShe’s witty, she’s warm and she’s a woman.But with a hard nose for business Christine Tsung,president of Taiwan’s China Airlines, has won overthe airline’s once uncompromising ‘men’s club’CharmoffensiveBy Jonathan Sharpin Taipei” Am a s t e r p i e c e t a k e smore time,” accordingto a traditionalChinese saying, one of severalthat lace the conversation of Christine TsaiTsung, the thoroughly modern and un-traditionalpresident and chief executive officer ofTaiwan’s biggest carrier, China Airlines (CAL).The masterpiece the stylish and youthfullooking52-year-old Ms Tsung refers to is theballyhooed deal for CAL to buy a 25% stakein the cargo unit of Shanghai-based ChinaEastern Airlines, a move that carries implicationsfor Taiwan-mainland China relations farbeyond the mechanics of a mundane commercialtransaction.In an interview with Orient Aviation atCAL’s Taipei headquarters, Ms Tsung wouldnot lay down more than a vague timeframefor her masterpiece to be completed, althoughshe has previously been quoted as sayingshe hoped to seal the deal by the end ofthis year.But she made it abundantly clear thatthe project was high on her agenda. “We aremoving forward. It is my interest and intentionto conclude this deal.”She said the remaining hurdles to becleared were not so much political as commer-cial. On the latter front she spoke of “a lot ofdetails, a lot of variables. If you want to makethe deal to everybody’s satisfaction ...you needto put in a little more time”.Ms Tsung also played down suggestionsthe deal, which in recent months has variouslyappeared to be imminent and tantalizinglydistant, represented such a mould-breakingstep in tearing down cross-Strait barriers ashas been suggested.She pointed to the recently announcedinvestment by CAL and two other Taiwancarriers, EVA Air and Far Eastern Air TransportCorp (FAT) in a cargo venture in the mainland’ssouthern Xiamen airport.CAL also said in July it would team upwith Taiwan shipping firms to provide transshipmentservices to transfer goods carried by‘Females are moresensitive, morepeople-oriented,and this[aviation] is apeople-orientedworld’China Airlines president, Christine Tsung, at theChinese ships arriving at the southern Taiwanport of Kaohsiung.But the undeniable prospect is for theend of the longstanding ban on direct airlinks between the mainland and the provincethat Beijing officially regards as a renegadeprovince that must be brought to heel, byforce if necessary.Does Ms Tsung expect direct flights, withthe mouth-watering vision of tapping intothe mainland’s enormous market, to startsoon? “Hopefully,” she says. “One thing forsure, it will make my customers much happier,because my primary customers are Taiwanesemerchants and a lot go to mainland China.”Scores of thousands of Taiwan businessmenare on the mainland to support the morethan US$60 billion of investment funnelledacross the Strait into the communist giantsince commercial rapprochement blossomedin the 1980s, and at present they are obliged totravel indirectly, principally via Hong Kong.In the wide-ranging interview the CALboss, who in July marked the first anniversaryof her arrival in a job she says she did not askfor, touched on the measures she has taken tosteer CAL through turbulent economic timesand revitalise an airline with a poor safetyrecord and a hidebound culture stemmingfrom its formation by ex-air force officersin 1959.28 | Orient Aviation | September 2001