Carriers want subsidies
Despite a Civil Aeronautics Administration decision to increase airfares on six routes to Taiwan-controlled outlying islands from Sept. 12, domestic carriers are still calling for full government subsidies for these money-losing flights.
Mandarin Airlines (華信航空) and UNI Airways Corp (立榮航空) said government subsidies are the only way to truly protect the interests of the residents of these outlying islands, as carriers might close down their operations when they see no possibility of making money off the routes, even with the price adjustments.
A Mandarin Airlines spokesman said the one-way fare on the Kaohsiung-Chimei route was NT$1,358 before the CAA adjustment. However, tickets were sold at NT$1,092 in order to attract passengers, even though the cost of flying a passenger on a such a flight costs NT$1,910. The ticket price newly approved by the CAA is NT$1,754.
A one-way fare on the Kaohsiung-Wangan route is NT$2,085, but the spokesman said his company charges just NT$1,082. The CAA price will be lifted to NT$1,358.
As no profits can be made by plying these routes, carriers are unwilling to operate these flights.
Chunghwa profits soar 48%
Taiwan's state-run Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) said yesterday its net profit soared 47.7 percent year-on-year to NT$25.05 billion (US$733.8 million) in the six months to June.
The profit surge was largely due to a reduction in costs for personnel as the company has cut back its workforce to 29,000 this year from 34,000 last year, a company said in a statement.
However, sales in the January-June period declined 6.6 percent to NT$86.27 billion from a year earlier, it said.
Chunghwa's operating expenses totaled NT$55.26 billion in the first half, down 21.04 percent from NT$69.99 billion in the same period last year, it said.
Its mobile phone service subscribers have exceeded seven million, with revenue from the segment rising 13.8 percent year-on-year, the statement said.
Sales from its broadband Internet service rose nine percent from the previous year, with more than 1.5 million subscribers, it said.
But incomes from fixed line service has declined because of competition with other private telecoms firms, it added.
End to spirit ban sought
Taiwan should end its ban on the import of spirits from China to stop the smuggling of kaoliang liquor, a type of sorghum liquor and to receive tax revenues from legally imported liquor, officials of the Importers and Exporters Association of Taipei (台北市進出口公會) said Thursday.
The association also said that Taiwan's Board of Foreign Trade was dragging its feet on the issue. Several participants at the meeting from the trade board said that the matter was being studied.
The chairman of the association, Lee Tung-liang (李棟樑), has come under fire from other members since his company is a distribution agent for Kinmen kaoliang liquor. Some claimed that he has created bottlenecks for the opening of imports of spirits from the mainland to protect what they consider to be his monopoly of the market.
NT dollar continues to fall
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday continued to lose ground against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.082 to close at NT$34.139 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. The turnover was US$433 million, down from the previous day's US$478 million.
The local currency opened at Friday's low of NT$34.073 and hit a high of NT$34.160 during the session.
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