Checked 12 November 2026. TransAsia Airways traced its beginnings to 1951, but its ending needs more than one date. Taiwan's transport yearbook records flight suspension on 22 November 2016. A separate ground-handling record gives 21 December 2016, while a later Civil Aviation Administration table notes bankruptcy proceedings in June 2018. Those milestones should not be collapsed into one event.
1951 is the beginning, not proof of uninterrupted flying
An 11 July 2012 ATR announcement identifies TransAsia as established in 1951 and Taiwan's first private airline. The airline's own history, preserved in a February 2015 archive capture, gives the same founding year.
That archived history also records Goldsun Group taking over operation and management in 1983 and the restoration of domestic operations in 1988. Those separate entries are a reason not to describe the company as flying continuously from 1951 until 2016.
The sources inspected establish the founding year and these later stages. They do not establish an exact first passenger departure for the original business. A founding date, a period of restored operations and a later airline brand's route growth are different kinds of history.
The fleet and network expanded in stages
The archived airline timeline says ATR 72 aircraft entered use in January 1991. It lists international charter activity in February 1992, an A320 introduction that August and an A321 introduction in July 1995.
For the later expansion period, the same archive records the first A330-300 delivery in November 2012. These entries describe milestones in the airline's own account, not evidence that every aircraft or route remained in service until the end.
ATR's July 2012 release gives a contemporary snapshot: an 18-aircraft passenger fleet and 33 destinations, split between six domestic and 27 regional points. These were dated manufacturer-reported figures. They are not a final fleet count or a route list that travellers can use today.
An ATR order was a plan to renew the fleet
On 11 July 2012, ATR announced eight firm ATR 72-600 orders and an option for one more. It said these would progressively replace a fleet of nine ATR 72-500s, with deliveries then planned from 2014 through 2017.
That announcement's eight firm aircraft plus one option must not be read as nine aircraft already delivered. The archived airline history later describes a changed order picture, referring in its February 2014 entry to twelve aircraft including three options.
The two records are snapshots from different times, not interchangeable final totals. This article does not reconstruct every order amendment or assume the planned delivery schedule was completed. The useful distinction is between the order, an option, an actual delivery and an aircraft operating a passenger flight.
The accident statements are not final investigation findings
TransAsia's history includes serious accidents that cannot responsibly be reduced to a speculative explanation of the company's end. ATR's 23 July 2014 GE222 statement confirms an accident involving an ATR 72-500 at Magong on a Kaohsiung–Magong service.
Its 4 February 2015 GE235 statement confirms an accident involving an ATR 72-600 near Taipei Songshan on a Taipei–Kinmen service. Both statements say the circumstances were under investigation and identify Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council as the lead investigation authority.
These were initial manufacturer notices, not final investigation reports. We have not used them to assign blame, describe a technical cause or make a present-day safety judgment about an aircraft type. Nor do they by themselves establish a single cause of the airline's later commercial shutdown.
22 November 2016: the flight-suspension record
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications 2016 yearbook chapter on airport operations contains an explicit note that TransAsia suspended flights on 22 November 2016. Its date is written as year 105 in Taiwan's Republic of China calendar, equivalent to 2016.
The surrounding table lists domestic routes and airlines for that reporting year. The footnote matters: an airline's name appearing in the historical annual table is not evidence that its passenger services continued after the stated suspension.
This official date establishes the flight-suspension milestone. It does not identify the final revenue flight number, its last arrival time, a final employee transfer or completion of the company's liquidation. Those more specific endpoints remain unconfirmed here.
21 December is a separate ground-handling endpoint
A different 2016 yearbook section on ground-handling businesses lists TransAsia among service providers and notes that its service stopped on 21 December 2016.
That chapter is about activities on the apron, such as handling, loading and related ground services. Its December date must not be substituted for the November flight-suspension date in the airport-operations chapter.
The records illustrate why an airline's end can leave more than one date in official publications. Passenger flights and other corporate services need not have the same last day. A history should name the activity beside the date rather than choosing whichever date is latest.
A later table records bankruptcy proceedings in June 2018
The CAA's airline-count table covering year-end figures through 2025 contains a historical note that TransAsia entered bankruptcy proceedings in June of year 107, equivalent to June 2018.
That is a later legal-process milestone, not a replacement date for when flights stopped in 2016. The table is an official statistical source with a historical note; it is not the underlying court judgment.
We have not independently inspected that judgment or established a final distribution to creditors, the outcome of every claim or the company's final legal dissolution date. A bankruptcy-process entry should not be rewritten as proof that all of those matters ended in June 2018.
Read the dates as a sequence, not a single label
The grounded sequence is: beginnings in 1951; management and operational changes in the 1980s; staged aircraft and network expansion; accident notices in 2014 and 2015; flight suspension on 22 November 2016; a ground-handling service endpoint on 21 December 2016; and a later CAA reference to June 2018 bankruptcy proceedings.
This is a historical guide, not a current flight, refund or creditor-claim service. No current baggage rule, compensation entitlement, replacement flight or claims deadline is inferred from these old records.
For a present-day itinerary, The Trip Keeper's trip-planning page can collect the actual travel dates and needs. Its private-tour page explains family-specific planning. Neither link implies this historic airline can be booked or that old claims are included in a travel package.
The hero is a fictional AI watercolor of an invented turboprop and coastal airport. It is not a TransAsia aircraft, actual airport, accident scene or documentary image.
Seven primary records were checked on 12 November 2026: a dated manufacturer order announcement, an archived airline history, two initial accident notices, two government yearbook sections and a later CAA statistical table. The archived page and annual reporting periods are identified so readers can judge the age and scope of each source.
- ATR, 11 July 2012: aircraft order and company background
- Airline history archived 16 February 2015: early development and fleet milestones
- ATR, 23 July 2014: initial GE222 accident statement, not a final finding
- ATR, 4 February 2015: initial GE235 accident statement, not a final finding
- MOTC 2016 yearbook: flight suspension on 22 November 2016
- MOTC 2016 yearbook: ground-handling service ended 21 December 2016
- CAA airline-count table through 2025: bankruptcy-proceedings note for June 2018
A Miranda House graduate and lawyer who traded courtrooms for slow travel. Cheshta travels with the batches we host ourselves, with a soft spot for travelling alongside elders.
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