While the government has decided to open eight airports to cross-strait charter flights, domestic airlines seem only to be interested in flights departing from Taipei, Taoyuan and Kaohsiung.
Based on the agreement the Straits Exchange Foundation and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait reached last week, Taiwan agreed to open the airports in Taoyuan, Kaohsiung, Taipei, Penghu, Hualien, Kinmen and Taitung to cross-strait charter flights.
A total of 36 round-trip charter flights will initially be offered between China and Taiwan from Friday to Monday, with each side offering 18 round-trip flights during these four days.
The number of round-trip flights departing from airports in Taiwan to Shanghai has been capped at nine.
The limit for round-trip flights from China to Taichung has been set at six flights.
The number 18 was derived from the six domestic airlines in Taiwan being allocated three round-trip flights to China each. After Far Eastern Air Transport Corp (FAT, 遠東航空) was disqualified because of its financial problems, its flights were redistributed between the remaining five airlines — China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空), Mandarin Airlines (華信航空), EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), UNI Airways Corp (立榮航空) and TransAsia Airways (復興航空).
In a meeting on Monday night, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) decided to settle the redistribution with a drawing of lots.
The result was that Mandarin, TransAsia and UNI Airways will be able to fly four round-trip charter flights on the first weekend of next month, whereas CAL and EVA are left with three each.
With a total of seven flights at their disposal, CAL and Mandarin Airlines are planning to have three flights between Taoyuan and Shanghai, two between Taoyuan and Beijing, and one between Taoyuan and Guangzhou. They have yet to decide what to do with the remaining flight.
EVA and UNI Airways also have seven flights. They said yesterday that they had chosen Taoyuan, Taipei and Kaohsiung to dispatch charter flights to Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.
They said they were still considering how to arrange the flights.
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
STIMULUS PLANS: An official said that China would increase funding from special treasury bonds and expand another program focused on key strategic sectors China is to sharply increase funding from ultra-long treasury bonds this year to spur business investment and consumer-boosting initiatives, a state planner official told a news conference yesterday, as Beijing cranks up fiscal stimulus to revitalize its faltering economy. Special treasury bonds would be used to fund large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-ins, said Yuan Da (袁達), deputy secretary-general of the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission. “The size of ultra-long special government bond funds will be sharply increased this year to intensify and expand the implementation of the two new initiatives,” Yuan said. Under the program launched last year, consumers can
TECH PULL: Electronics heavyweights also attracted strong buying ahead of the CES, analysts said. Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed amid Trump’s incoming presidency Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares yesterday closed at a new high in the wake of a rally among tech stocks on Wall Street on Friday, moving the TAIEX sharply higher by more than 600 points. TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock in the TAIEX, rose 4.65 percent to close at a new high of NT$1,125, boosting its market value to NT$29.17 trillion (US$888 billion) and contributing about 400 points to the TAIEX’s rise. The TAIEX ended up 639.41 points, or 2.79 percent, at 23,547.71. Turnover totaled NT$406.478 billion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The surge in TSMC follows a positive performance
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
RSS