Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport will enter a new era today when it becomes a state-run company, a move aimed at enhancing the airport’s efficiency and improving its tarnished image following repeated glitches and heavy criticism of its services.
Instilling a “business management spirit” through the airport’s corporatization is one of the ways the government hopes to enhance the airport’s management and develop the facility’s adjacent areas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said in a statement on Saturday.
The airport, which has been a government agency since it opened in 1979, has suffered repeated malfunctions in recent months, including leaky bathrooms, defective jetways and a breakdown of the automatic baggage handling system.
Former Civil Aeronautics Administration director-general Chang Yu-hern (張有恆), the convener of a government task force aimed at improving the airport’s services, has said the government would make the airport one of the world’s top 10 airports within three years. It currently ranks No. 27 in the world.
The ministry will hold a ceremony today to mark the formation of the new company, which it said was the result of a government plan last year to renovate the airport.
The government will also invest NT$67 billion (US$2.2 billion) in the construction of a third terminal for the airport, which is scheduled for completion by 2018.
By that time, the airport is estimated to serve 75 million passengers per year, with the third terminal able to handle 43 million, the ministry projected.
However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Tsao Erh-chang (曹爾忠) recently expressed skepticism over the ministry’s projections, saying the international airport had only handled 24 million travelers so far this year.
DEFENSE: The National Security Bureau promised to expand communication and intelligence cooperation with global partners and enhance its strategic analytical skills China has not only increased military exercises and “gray zone” tactics against Taiwan this year, but also continues to recruit military personnel for espionage, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said yesterday in a report to the Legislative Yuan. The bureau submitted the report ahead of NSB Director-General Tsai Ming-yen’s (蔡明彥) appearance before the Foreign and National Defense Committee today. Last year, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted “Joint Sword-2024A and B” military exercises targeting Taiwan and carried out 40 combat readiness patrols, the bureau said. In addition, Chinese military aircraft entered Taiwan’s airspace 3,070 times last year, up about
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese
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