The launch of regular cross-strait flights led to an increase in the total number of passengers, but the average occupancy rate has reached only slightly more than 60 percent, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said yesterday.
Taiwan and China launched regular cross-strait flights at the end of August following the third-round of cross-strait talks earlier this summer. The two agreed to provide a total of 270 cross-strait flights per week. CAA Deputy Director General Wang Te-ho (王德和) said yesterday that between Aug. 31 and Nov. 1, Taiwan’s airliners operated a total of 1,118 cross-strait flights, whereas Chinese airlines offered 1,142 flights.
The number of cross-strait flights offered each week varied between 253 and 258 flights, Wang said.
CAA statistics show that cross-strait flights carried a total of approximately 700,000 passengers, with the occupancy rate reaching 62.7 percent.
Wang said, however, that the number of cross-strait flight passengers had shown steady growth each week.
He said the average was about 46,000 each week when there were only daily charter flights. The number jumped to 78,000 per week after regular cross-strait flight service began.
“What we wanted to focus on was the trend in the market.” Wang said. “We can expect the market to grow if the curve continues to go upward.”
The CAA statistics also generated other findings. Flights to Songshan had the highest average occupancy rate, at 70 percent, followed by those to Taichung Airport and Taoyuan Airport. In China, Fuzhou topped Shanghai, with the highest average occupancy rate, at 78.8 percent, CAA statistics showed. Flights to Shanghai showed an occupancy rate of 75.8 percent, the statistics showed.
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
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