Far Eastern Air Transport Corp (FAT, 遠東航空) said it would suspend its operations temporarily from tomorrow because of a lack of funds.
The Taipei-based carrier apologized to the public for any inconvenience resulting from its decision, it said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Far Eastern Air operates domestic flights and regular flights between Taiwan and resort islands including Jeju of South Korea, Palau, and Bali of Indonesia.
The carrier said in February it was seeking protection from creditors because of “financial difficulties.”
Meanwhile, nine travel service companies accused Alex Lou (樓文豪), a managing director of Cambodia-based Angkor Airways Corp (吳哥航空), of fraud at the Taipei District Prosecutors Office yesterday after sustaining heavy financial losses caused by the airline’s abrupt suspension of flights.
Yao Ta-kuang (姚大光), chairman of the Travel Agent Association of the Republic of China Taiwan, said the companies — all of which are Taipei-based — made the move after seeking assistance from the Executive Yuan’s Consumer Protection Commission.
Yao said commission officials said that the travel agents should take legal action as this would be the most efficient way for the travel agencies to get back money they have paid for advance bookings on flights offered by the Phnom Penh-based airline between Taipei and Siem Reap — home to the world famous Angkor Wat complex.
The travel agencies sustained losses valued at more than NT$100 million (US$3.2 million) due to the suspension of the flights, Yao said.
Lou was detained by prosecutors in Taipei on May 1 in relation to an alleged embezzlement scandal involving FAT, which leased planes to Angkor Airways.
Lou was responsible for the financial management of Angkor Airlines’ Taipei branch and without him, the branch faced insurmountable cash flow problems, Angkor officials said.
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
READY TO HELP: Should TSMC require assistance, the government would fully cooperate in helping to speed up the establishment of the Chiayi plant, an official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its investment plans in Taiwan are “unchanged” amid speculation that the chipmaker might have suspended construction work on its second chip packaging plant in Chiayi County and plans to move equipment arranged for the plant to the US. The Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported earlier yesterday that TSMC had halted the construction of the chip packaging plant, which was scheduled to be completed next year and begin mass production in 2028. TSMC did not directly address whether construction of the plant had halted, but said its investment plans in Taiwan remain “unchanged.” The chipmaker started
MORTGAGE WORRIES: About 34% of respondents to a survey said they would approach multiple lenders to pay for a home, while 29.2% said they would ask family for help New housing projects in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county, are projected to total NT$710.65 billion (US$23.61 billion) in the upcoming fall sales season, a record 30 percent decrease from a year earlier, as tighter mortgage rules prompt developers to pull back, property listing platform 591.com (591新建案) said yesterday. The number of projects has also fallen to 312, a more than 20 percent decrease year-on-year, underscoring weakening sentiment and momentum amid lingering policy and financing headwinds. New Taipei City and Taoyuan bucked the downturn in project value, while Taipei, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung
RSS