Lawmakers seek redress after disaster

Strongly condemning China Airlines for its notorious safety record, DPP legislators yesterday demanded that safety be made the main criterion in deciding the number of scheduled flights an airline is permitted to run.

The legislators also asked the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) to increase in severity the punishment for airlines found responsible for catastrophic accidents.

Wang Tuoh (王拓), chief executive of the DPP legislative caucus, said CAL lacks "any sense of social responsibility" and allows air crashes to happen again and again mainly because the CAA is partly responsible for bringing about the situation.

Wang said he had pressed the CAA many years ago to cut the scheduled flights of airline companies with bad safety records, but the proposal was apparently ignored.

"Otherwise, how is it possible that China Airlines is still able to control prime air routes and cut its ticket prices to compete with other airlines?" Wang asked.

Wang said this time, the CAA must move aggressively to protect the safety of passengers.

Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯), another DPP legislator who serves as a convener of the body's Transportation Committee, said the structure and management of China Airlines requires a complete overhaul.

Tsai said the punishment for airline companies in the case of an air accident is far too light.

Currently, any airline that experiences a crash forfeits for one year the right to enjoy additional flights allowed under any new aviation pacts -- if there are any new aviation pacts.

Tsai proposed that the duration of forfeiture be extended to three to five years.

Also, any airline with a bad safety record should be forced to give up some of its air routes or flights and let airlines with a better safety record take over, Tsai said. This would encourage negligent airlines to shape up.

Although the punishments would likely cause concern at airline companies experiencing financial difficulty, flight safety is a more important and basic issue, he added.

Lin Yi-shih (林益世), KMT legislative whip, declined to join the discussion in session yesterday, saying that as the KMT is not the ruling party, the matter is completely under the jurisdiction of the executive branch. He did say out of session, however, that the CAA could, if it wanted to, pull routes from airlines held responsible for fatal crashes.

The best way for the DPP government to show its accountability, Lin said, is to work out whatever measures it thinks is proper to improve the situation and have them implemented without further delay.