China Airlines cuts flights to HK

China Airlines Co (中華航空) axed nearly 20 percent of its daily flights to Hong Kong yesterday after passengers aborted travel there because of the recent outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

Taiwan's largest carrier, which operates 16 flights every day to Hong Kong, cancelled three Taiwan-Hong Kong flights yesterday according to Joseph Wu (武志厚), a public relations official at China Airlines.

Future flights cancellations will be determined by daily demand, Wu said.

Spokesperson Roger Han (韓梁中) said the carrier would cancel flights timed close together to minimize customer inconvenience.

He added that while the airline would try to notify passengers of any cancellations, he urged them to contact the airline or check the China Airlines Web site for scheduling changes.

At EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), the nation's second-largest air carrier, the killer disease has led to a 20 percent decline in passenger traffic to Hong Kong.

"We are now filling only 50 to 60 percent of seats on flights between Taipei and Hong Kong, while the occupancy rate is usually around 80 percent," EVA spokesman Nieh Kuo-wei (聶國維) said yesterday. "The disease has had a serious effect on local airlines, [which fly between Taiwan and Hong Kong]."

Nieh said that EVA flies to Hong Kong 40 times per week and may consider reducing flight numbers if the occupancy rate continues to drop.

The disease will weigh heavier on China Airlines than the war in Iraq after the World Health Organization on Wednesday warned travelers to steer clear of southern China and Hong Kong, Taiwan Rating Corp (台灣信評), a local arm of Standard & Poor's, said in a statement on Wednesday.

"Demand for air travel will decline and China Airlines' overall performance is likely to weaken in the near term ...," it said.

China Airlines shares dropped NT$0.05, or 0.1 percent, to close at NT$12 on the TAIEX yesterday.

Meanwhile, local companies, that operate across the Taiwan Strait, are continuing to implement their contingency plans to stymie the spread of SARS from China-based employees.

Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) has put a ban on returning trips of China-based employees since mid March, a company executive, who refused to be identified, said yesterday.

According to the executive, the company's China-based employees are given nine days leave every two months to return home. But since the disease broke out in March, employees have been advised to spend vacation time elsewhere. Local employees, moreover, are restricted from making unnecessary business trips to China. If trips are made to China or foreign countries, staff have been advised to wear masks and avoid stopovers in Hong Kong.

Compal, moreover, disinfected 11 floors at its Taipei-based headquarters in late March.

Adopting a similar plan, Alex Hsu (徐信群), senior vice president of Inventec Corp (英業達), said that the company strictly demanded returning employees to take five days leave, two of which are paid, to make sure no transmissions of the disease are made to the Taipei office. Returning employees are required to wear surgical masks in the Taipei office for a period of two weeks, Hsu said.

Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械) gave away free masks and bottles of disinfectant to all employees, to keep its working environment virus-free.