Mandarin seeks to cancel Taipei to Taichung flights

Mandarin Airlines (華信航空), a subsidiary of China Airlines (華航) that operates mainly on domestic routes, announced yesterday that it had applied to cease providing flights between Taipei and Taichung effective next month.

The airline said its decision came as a result of widening losses following the commencement of the high speed rail service.

"In the past few months, Taipei to Taichung flights have operated at less than 30 percent capacity, which has caused heavy losses for the company," Irving Hsu (徐正權), a public relations official at Mandarin Airlines said in a telephone interview yesterday.

He did not specify the losses.

While the carrier hopes to cancel the flights next month to stem its losses, the final decision rests with the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), Hsu said.

CAA Vice Director Lin Shinn-der (林信得) said yesterday that the administration would seriously consider the airline's proposal.

"It is impossible to ask airline service operators to bear continuous losses," Lin said, adding that the flights in question could not compete with the high speed rail.

Lin said, however, that it was unlikely that the flights would be canceled as soon as next month. The CAA would reassess the situation after the high speed rail commenced operations from Taipei to Kaohsiung on March 2, he said.

Hsu said that if the CAA approved the cancelation of the Taipei to Taichung flights, Mandarin Airlines would sell the aircraft used to service the route.