In addition to its flights to Shanghai and Shenzhen, Taichung’s Chingchuankang Airport will soon offer a weekly flight to Beijing, an official said on Friday.
“Once the program to expand cross-strait flights starts in July or August, the airport in central Taiwan will also offer one flight to Beijing each week in addition to Shanghai and Shenzhen [flights],” Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) Director-General Lee Lung-wen (李龍文).
Lee was responding to concerns that Taichung was losing out in the competition to handle direct flights to China.
“Talks with Taiwan’s carriers on arranging a weekly flight from Taiwan’s third-largest city, Taichung, to Beijing will start next week,” Lee said in response to complaints from legislators who represent districts in central Taiwan that Taichung was being left out.
About 5 million people, or 21 percent of the country’s population, live in central Taiwan, legislators said, adding that it was unfair to residents of the region that there were not enough direct flights between Taichung and China after non-stop charter flights were launched in July last year.
“It is normal that central Taiwan’s residents want more flights between Chingchuankang Airport and a larger number of Chinese destinations,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Tsang-min (林滄敏) said.
Although Taiwan is entitled to operate 135 cross-strait flights per week beginning this summer based on an accord reached in April between the Straits Exchange Foundation and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, the legislators said Chingchuankang Airport had only been allotted five of those flights.
Responding to Lin’s requests, Lee said the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) had created a blueprint to build a terminal for larger airplanes and international flights at Chingchuankang Airport with the aim of serving 1.35 million passengers per year.
Under the project, the central government will earmark NT$3.9 billion (US$118.9 million) to build an international terminal at the airport.
Construction of the facility is scheduled to be completed by 2012, Lee said.
The CEPD plans to turn Chingchuankang Airport into a regional hub serving passenger flights and cross-strait routes.
It projected that the airport could serve at least 3.5 million passengers per year in the long term, Lee said.
Although Shanghai is one popular Chinese destination among Taiwanese carriers, Lee said earlier this week that none had applied to ply the Taichung-Shanghai route because the runways at Chingchuankang Airport can only accommodate smaller planes with a seat capacity of around 100 passengers.
Lee said that the CAA had asked Taiwanese carriers including China Airlines, EVA Airways and TransAsia Airways, all of which fly to Shanghai from either Taipei or Kaohsiung, to offer one flight per week each from Chingchuankang Airport to Shanghai.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS