Taiwan’s EVA Air has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Boeing for the purchase of five B777Fs at the Paris Air Show recently. The commitment, valued at more than US$1.5 billion at list prices, represents the first B777 Freighters to join the Taiwanese operator’s cargo fleet which currently consists of eight ageing B747-400Fs.

The purchase is the first phase of a fleet renewal programme, outlined by the carrier’s chairman Kuo Wei Chang earlier in the year. In the long term, EVA plans to grow its widebody fleet to more than sixty aircraft by the end of 2025.

The carrier also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Airbus for the purchase of four additional A330-300s as it boosts its Southeast Asian network. EVA has embarked on a renewed push into the North American market, launching its first new long-haul destination in five years to Houston from 19 June, to be followed by Chicago in 2016.

Houston will be EVA’s 11th long-haul destination with current services to Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, Toronto and Vancouver in North America and Amsterdam, Paris, London Heathrow and Vienna in Europe. The carrier plans to feed into its growing long haul network by adding capacity to Southeast Asia through additional frequencies connecting through Taipei.

EVA’s long-haul fleet currently consists of 24 aircraft, including 21 B777-300ERs and three B747-400s along with 14 A330s and 15 A321s. The airline is slated to on two more B777-300ERs in the second half of 2015, seven in 2016 and two in 2017 giving it a substantial fleet of 32 B777-300ERs. The B747-400 passenger aircraft will be phased out in the process of taking in the B777-300ERs.