CAL fired up about Chen's trip to Africa

China Airlines (CAL) yesterday introduced the staff that will accompany President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on his trip to Africa, which starts tonight.

CAL held a press conference at Taipei's Sungshan Airport (松山機場) yesterday afternoon to introduce four pilots and 14 flight attendants who will serve the presidential flight to Senegal, Sao Tome and Principe, Malawi and Swaziland.

According to the public relations department at CAL, the flight will also carry 40 staff to handle flight operations, maintenance, catering, ground service and ground security.

Chen is taking the CAL plane despite fears over safety of the company following the crash of one of its Boeing 747s on May 25.

On two previous foreign trips, Chen flew on an EVA Airways Boeing 747-400, but some of the airports in the nations Chen is visiting can not handle such a large aircraft.

According to a government official, Chen considered switching to another airline after the crash, but decided to stick with CAL as there was not enough time to prepare another aircraft and he didn't want to undermine trust in CAL any further.

Captain Tai Hsu-tung (戴旭東), first officer (co-pilot) Chang Chen-ning (常振寧), captain Thomas Druce and captain Angus Hay will fly the aircraft during the trip.

Tai has 5,600 hours of experience flying the Airbus 300-340 that Chen is taking, and is an instructor for the aircraft at CAL. Chang is also an instructor, with 3,850 flying hours.

Druce and Hay are both Canadians. Druce is a senior pilot and instructor for the Airbus series planes and has flown 12,990 hours. He has been a captain on Boeing and Airbus aircraft since 1974. Hay is also an instructor at CAL for Airbus planes and has flown 11,655 hours.

"In addition to myself, all my colleagues here are experienced pilots and we're all ready to go," Tai said. "Our cabin crew are all senior flight attendants with lots of experience. Cabin service chief Lee Li-ling (李麗玲), for example, has been with us for more than 18 years."

Lee said that passengers will have a wide choice of food prepared by the CAL's air-meal service department.

"Other than drinks such as tea, juice, water, soda, beer and wine, we will also provide vegetarian dishes, and western, Japanese and Chinese-style breakfast, lunch and dinner for everybody on board," Lee said. "We also have two options of dessert."

Tai said the plane was equipped for the less advanced airports it would be visiting in Africa.

"The A300-340 for this presidential trip was introduced last November and has flown 3,141 hours. It is equipped with a global positioning system to assist pilots in take-off and landing in less advanced airports," Tai said.

According to a CAL press release, in the first-class cabin, the president will have a fully reclining electrically powered luxury seat that swivels 180 degrees.

All seats for this trip are equipped with digital interactive personal TV screens, on which passengers can watch movies, play video games and see the view from a camera fixed to the outside of the aircraft.

The plane is also equipped with satellite telephones.

The 258-seat capacity plane will take off at 10:30pm tonight carrying the nearly 60 CAL staff and more than 100 members of Chen's entourage and reporters.