Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) is studying the feasibility of building another runway at Wuliting Airport in Hengchun (
Chang said that during winter there are often strong winds in Hengchun, which create difficulties for airplanes during take off and landing. The CAA has therefore began a study on the feasibility of building another runway perpendicular to the present one to help airplane pilots to overcome these problems.
He said the airport originally cost approximately NT$539 million (US$16.33 million) to build and initial estimates put the price for constructing another runway at NT$1 billion.
The money would mainly be spent purchasing land and coordinating with state-owned Taiwan Power Co to relocate an underground electric cable, Chang said.
CAA officials said Hengchun airport was inaugurated in January 2004 chiefly to help relieve traffic congestion at nearby Kenting National Park during the holiday season.
Three airlines -- UNI Airways Corp, Trans Asia Airways and Mandarin Airlines -- originally offered daily flight services between Hengchun and Taipei, Taichung and Taitung, but because the passenger occupancy rate has averaged less than 40 percent during the past two years, the number of flights has gradually been cut.
The CAA requested Mandarin Airlines and Trans Asia Airways withdraw from the Taipei-Hengchun route. As of Friday only UNI Airways will now fly the route.
UNI Airways chairman Su Hung-yi (蘇宏義) said that Hengchun Peninsula attracts 5 million tourists every year, including many from Japan and Hong Kong. The airline is looking to cooperate with operators of leisure activities to promote travel to Hengchun on UNI Airways, Su said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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