The high speed rail has dealt a heavy blow to domestic air traffic, reducing the number of air passengers by 22 percent compared with figures for the same period last year, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday.
Ministry officials said there were approximately 119,000 domestic flights in the first six months of this year, down 13.72 percent from the 138,000 flights during the same period last year.
The number of air passengers on domestic routes totaled 6.72 million in the first six months of this year, down 22.14 percent from the 8.63 million the same period last year.
By comparison, the number of international flights totaled 95,820 during the first half of this year, up 3.36 percent over the figure for the same period last year.
The number of passengers on these international flights totaled 12.01 million, up 4.26 percent from the 11.52 million last year.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Tsai Duei (蔡堆) said the launch of the high speed rail service in early January had affected other transportation operators, especially domestic air carriers.
Taking consumer rights as well as the sustainable development of air carriers into consideration, the ministry has reviewed flight routes and numbers and begun working with the industry to promote package tours, he said.
Civil Aeronautics Administration Director-General Billy Chang (張國政) said a sluggish economy as well as convenient land transportation had affected domestic air carriers.
As the air carriers cannot allow their planes to lie idle, some have been forced to cut air fares to compete with the high speed rail, Chang said, adding that "this is not a good thing."
The railway has cut travel time between Taipei and Kaohsiung -- five hours on a regular train -- by more than half.
The high speed rail operates 45 round-trip runs daily, carrying about 50,000 passengers. It has transported 10 million passengers since its inauguration on Jan. 5.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
RSS