Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport will get its 1st nonstop flight to Asia in 2026

Sky Harbor International Airport will have a nonstop flight to Asia for the first time starting next year. Mayor Kate Gallego made the announcement during her annual State of the City address on Tuesday.

Gallego said, pending final gate approval, Taiwan’s Starlux Airlines is planning to launch a route from Taipei to Phoenix. Starlux plans to offer the flights three times a week starting in February.

The mayor said the number of travelers coming to Phoenix from Taiwan has increased fivefold in five years, in large part due to the city’s growing semiconductor manufacturing industry. The Taiwan-based chipmaking giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. first announced a plan for facilities in Phoenix in 2020. TSMC has invested $165 billion in Phoenix since.

“We expect a lot of people to take this flight from other Asian countries, particularly Japan and South Korea, many of whom work in semiconductors, but so many other industries as well,” Gallego said.

Gallego said the flights will be important not just for international travelers, but also for transporting semiconductor parts from overseas.

“With these flights, the seats matter, but also the cargo really matters, and semiconductors are one of the few products that often travel by air. Today, many semiconductor parts might fly into California and then be trucked here,” Gallego said.

Starlux is a relatively new airline – it has only operated flights since 2020. Gallego said she first discussed a possible Phoenix route with the airline in 2019, before Starlux even had any planes.