Employees of the financially troubled Far Eastern Air Transport (FAT, 遠東航空) urged the government yesterday to bail out the airline after FAT’s management team announced the suspension of its operations on Monday.
FAT executives yesterday set up an emergency team to take charge of the company’s businesses and urged the government to get involved in the company’s management.
“FAT executives truly believe that the airline still offers operating value. However, as FAT’s board of directors were unable to attract capital injection, the situation can only be resolved if the government gets actively involved,” Hanson Chang (張有朋), senior manager of FAT’s public relations office, said yesterday.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUN, TAIPEI TIMES
Chang said FAT planned to suspend domestic flights but operate chartered overseas flights, which will be paid by local travel agencies.
“Domestic air routes will be discontinued in the short term,” Chang said.
International routes — including Palau, Bali in Indonesia, Japan, and Laoag in the Philippines — will continue to operate, he said.
Chang said FAT had approximately NT$3.4 million in cash as of yesterday, and expected the amount to increase to NT$12 million (US$388,900) within the next two days after receiving other income, Chang said, without specifying its income sources.
Chang said FAT also planned to sell shares of ezfly.com (易飛網), an online travel agency backed by the company and which it estimated to have a book value of NT$90 million, in a bid to increase FAT’s revenues.
FAT’s current net value is close to zero and needs a short-term capital injection of NT$2 billion to help the company maintain its operations, Chang said.
“FAT’s main problem is the air route to Jeju, South Korea, with up to 300 Taiwanese tourists stuck there,” Chang said.
If the company were to add in flight extensions to Beijing, Shanghai and Shenyang, the total number would be around 1,000, Chang said.
“As the number of tourists stuck in Jeju is huge and FAT has to pay for the fuel costs itself, FAT will have to negotiate with the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) [to resolve this issue],” Chang said.
FAT canceled all of its domestic routes yesterday, but dispatched four international flights — Taipei-Jeju, Taipei-Palau, Kaohsiung-Jeju and Kaohsiung-Laoag — to bring some of the Taiwanese tourists home.
The Travel Agents Association (旅行公會全國聯合會) calculated that, as of yesterday, a total of 1,438 FAT passengers were not able to return because of flight cancelations.
Association chairman Yao Ta-kuang (姚大光) said yesterday that it would sue FAT and seek compensation from the CAA for failing to supervise FAT’s operations.
“They knew there was something wrong with the company, but they let it continue until it fell,” he said.
Yao added that the legal action would be collectively taken by about six travel agencies in a day or two.
But Yao declined to answer when asked why the travel agencies continued to sell FAT ticket if they knew it had financial problems.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHELLEY SHAN
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
NOT TO WORRY: Some people are concerned funds might continue moving out of the country, but the central bank said financial account outflows are not unusual in Taiwan Taiwan’s outbound investments hit a new high last year due to investments made by contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and other major manufacturers to boost global expansion, the central bank said on Thursday. The net increase in outbound investments last year reached a record US$21.05 billion, while the net increase in outbound investments by Taiwanese residents reached a record US$31.98 billion, central bank data showed. Chen Fei-wen (陳斐紋), deputy director of the central bank’s Department of Economic Research, said the increase was largely due to TSMC’s efforts to expand production in the US and Japan. Investments by Vanguard International
WARNING SHOT: The US president has threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on all imported vehicles, and similar or higher duties on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors US President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that a trade deal with China was “possible” — a key target in the US leader’s tariffs policy. The US in 2020 had already agreed to “a great trade deal with China” and a new deal was “possible,” Trump said. Trump said he expected Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to visit the US, without giving a timeline for his trip. Trump also said that he was talking to China about TikTok, as the US seeks to broker a sale of the popular app owned by Chinese firm ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動). Trump last week said that he had
RSS