Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, Singapore Airlines Ltd and other carriers, already suffering because of severe acute respiratory syndrome, will be hurt by Taiwan's visa ban for residents of SARS-affected areas.
Taiwan said yesterday it won't issue any visas to visitors from Singapore, China, Hong Kong and Toronto, to curb the spread of the disease, which has claimed at least 293 lives worldwide. The four areas are among the worst-hit by the virus, with China accounting for more than half of the world's cases.
"It's like rubbing salt in the wound," said Lisa Wong, a spokeswoman with Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong's biggest airline. "There are already very few travelers in the region. Any further constraint that will disrupt traveling is bad for us."
Demand for plane tickets and hotel rooms has slumped since the disease began spreading outside of China last month, prompting companies to cancel business trips and tourists to stay away.
Cathay Pacific has responded by trimming 45 percent of its flights and said last week that it may cut its dividend. Singapore Air, which operates 10 flights a week to Taipei, has slashed 20 percent of its capacity.
"The worry now is that more and more countries may follow suit if SARS isn't contained soon," said Pierre Lau, an analyst at Nomura International (HK) Ltd. "The outlook for the industry is already very bad."
The airlines may have to further reduce their schedules, Lau said.
The halt on visas for residents from Hong Kong, Singapore, and Toronto will last for two weeks, Taiwan Premier Yu Shyi-kun told a press conference in Taipei. Yu did not say how long the ban on visitors from China would last.
Cathay Pacific now operates six to seven flights daily to Taipei, after earlier cutting half of its services. EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), Taiwan's second-largest carrier, has cut its service to Hong Kong to five to six times a day and may further combine the flights if necessary, spokesman Nieh Kuo-wei (聶國維) said.
"The visa restrictions will definitely affect airlines' passenger business," said Nieh. "It's hard to quantify because the daily schedule changes every day."
China Airlines Co (
Officials of Singapore Airlines and China Airlines declined to comment immediately on Taiwan's travel restrictions.
"The premier has only just announced this measure, it's hard to evaluate now," said China Airlines spokesman Roger Han (
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure