The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) yesterday said it is leaning toward a plan to demolish the two terminals at Kaohsiung International Airport and build a new one that can accommodate both domestic and international passengers.
The domestic and international terminals are currently connected by a 343m-long passageway.
With the number of international flights increasing, the CAA at the end of 2017 began proposing ways to revamp the airport’s terminals.
Photo: CNA
A proposal to tear down the two terminals and build a new one was considered after reviewing two other options, the CAA said.
The original plan was to demolish the domestic terminal and construct a new one on the site that could be accessed by domestic and international passengers, it said.
However, it dropped the idea because there would still have to be a passageway connecting the two terminals, it said.
It then proposed another plan at the beginning of this year, where a new international terminal would be built between the two existing terminals.
While there would be three terminals, on the outside people would see only one large terminal serving domestic and international passengers, it said.
The CAA abandoned the idea, because of the cost and difficulty of integrating the systems of the new and old terminals.
The original plan would have boosted the airport’s passenger capacity from 7 million annually to 10 million by 2035, but the new plan would further expand it to 16.5 million passengers by 2040, it said.
To ensure that construction would not disrupt the airport’s operation, the CAA said it would build half of the new terminal first, while operations at the existing facilities continue.
A comprehensive plan to revamp the terminals is to be finalized by the end of this year, it said, adding that it hopes the Environmental Impact Assessment Committee would review the project next year.
Construction of a new terminal, estimated to cost NT$38.4 billion (US$1.26 billion), is expected to commence in 2022 and take eight to 10 years, it said.
CAA statistics showed that passenger traffic hit a record 6.98 million last year, with international passenger numbers growing at an average of 5 percent in the past five years.
The CAA has spent NT$1.08 billion renovating the runways, with the work completed in May.
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
RSS