The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) yesterday approved an amendment to the regulations governing appropriation of government subsidies on passenger flights to some of the nation＊s outlying islands. The amendment will take effect after the Executive Yuan approves it.
Currently, passengers whose registered residences are in Kinmen, Matsu, Penghu, Green Island (粖郣) or Orchid Island (桮蜉) receive a 20 percent discount on domestic flight tickets.
After the amendment, however, passengers from Matsu will receive a 30 percent discount, whereas those from Green Island and Orchid Island or Chimei (齎皒) and Wa〝ngan (寪颭) in Penghu will receive a 40 percent discount when they purchase airline tickets.
The discount for passengers for the rest of Penghu and Kinmen remains at 20 percent.
Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) Director-General Lee Lung-wen (軝蛅湞) said the discounts were adjusted based on flight distance and the number of daily flights available.
※On average, there are less than 10 flights per day to the Nangan (欬忨) and Beigan (暕忨) airports in Matsu, as well as to Chimei, Wangan, Orchid Island or Green Island. Also, they use smaller aircraft, so more subsidies are needed,§ Lee said. ※There are more than 10 flights per day to Kinmen or Penghu, on the other hand, and they use larger aircraft.§
Lee said the CAA was striving to put the new policy into practice by April 1. Because President Ma Ying-jeou (堜褙朐) promoted the amendment to the Civil Aviation Act (硠樾?厗跏) authorizing an increase in subsidies for residents of outlying islands on Jan. 23, those purchasing tickets between Jan. 25 and April 1 can get a refund as well.
The CAA estimated that the new policy would cause the budget of flight subsidies to increase by approximately NT$23.4 million (US$688,000) and that 18,000 residents of outlying islands would benefit when the policy takes effect.
The Civil Aviation Development Fund will fund the subsidies.
In related news, lawmakers serving on the legislature＊s Transportation Committee yesterday asked the CAA why ticket prices for cross-strait charter flights remained at the same high level even after the travel route was shortened and the cost of aircraft fuel dropped dramatically on international markets.
In response, Lee said the only solution was to increase the number of cross-strait charter flights.
※When you have more seats to sell, you find ways to sell them,§ Lee said. ※Passengers coming through tour groups are able to get bigger discounts. By contrast, individual passengers will be charged relatively more.§
The Tourism Bureau has reported that the number of Chinese tourists scheduled to come in the next five days will top 15,765, with the daily average reaching approximately 2,200.
Tourism Bureau Director-General Janice Lai (羜聝藟) said another company in China would soon organize incentive tours to Taiwan for approximately 6,000 employees.
When asked about the possibility of allowing individual Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan, Lai said the Chinese government may have a hard time agreeing to this arrangement.
※Right now, they only allow people to travel freely to Hong Kong and Macau,§ she said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS