Far Eastern Air Transport’s (FAT) hopes for resuming operations dimmed as the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said yesterday it had withdrawn the firm’s right to operate several profitable international routes.
CAA Deputy Director-General Lin Shinn-der (林信得) said FAT’s right to operate the international flights had already expired in January.
“If we do not withdraw [the rights], other airlines would say that this is really a waste of the nation’s aviation resources. So now they can go ahead and take over,” Lin said.
FAT still holds the rights to operate flights to the nation’s outlying islands and the CAA has also reserved a spot for FAT to operate cross-strait flights, Lin said.
The CAA said FAT would not be able to fly to Incheon and Jeju in Korea, U-Tapao International Airport and Phuket in Thailand, Hanoi and Da Nang in Vietnam, Bali in Indonesia, Laoag in the Philippines and Kota Kinabalu and Kuching in Malaysia. It will soon open these flights to other airlines.
The CAA ruling makes it less likely that the debt-ridden company will be able to survive following its application with the Taipei District Court to restructure its finances last year and its aircraft being impounded as collateral for banks.
The court is scheduled to rule on the application by May 16, but the airline is unlikely to be able to join negotiations for the distribution of cross-strait flights after the third cross-strait talk in Nanjing next month.
One of the topics on the agenda is whether to change from a cross-strait charter flight service to a regular cross-strait flight service. The key difference is that charter flights can be canceled if there are not enough passengers for the flight, while regular flights cannot.
In related news, Aviation Safety Council (ASC) director Yang Hung-chi (楊宏智) said yesterday that officials from Taiwan and China had been discussing cross-strait flight safety issues. He said the two sides are likely to agree that, given the special status of Taiwan-China relations, in the case of accidents involving cross-strait flights, the right to launch investigations would be determined by where the accident happened. Two designated handover points now demarcate each side’s flight control zone.
The handover point for the flights to northern China is called Sulem, which is located at 27°N and 122°E on the map. Flights to southern China must follow handover procedures at the designated flight control area near Hong Kong.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
MULTIPRONGED APPROACH: China has sought to pressure Palau across a number of fronts, but the island nation has staunchly resisted overtures to ditch Taiwan Palau has been firm in backing Taiwan despite Chinese pressure that uses tourism economics, cyberattacks and criminal infiltration as tools to threaten the Pacific ally into renouncing its recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign state. The Presidential Office yesterday announced that Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) would visit Palau from Saturday to Wednesday next week at the invitation of Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr. Whipps in April said in an interview that China had outspokenly asked Palau to “denounce Taiwan.” “And we have said: ‘We have no enemies, but nobody tells us who our friends are,’” he said. Whipps has told reporters multiple times
RSS