The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said yesterday that 176 extra cross-strait flights would be added to airline schedules to help Taiwanese return from Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou during the Lunar New Year holidays.
CAA Director-General Lee Lung-wen (李龍文) said Taiwan and China agreed to cap the flights to and from these four cities because the airspaces and time slots of the airports in those cities are expected to be packed during this time, as Chinese domestic flight schedules will also be very full.
The CAA said a total of 672 flights would be operating among these four cities during the holidays, including regular cross-strait flights that are already available.
Only flights to and from these four cities were capped.
Flights to and from other Chinese airports, such as Hangzhou, will not be capped.
The agency plans to finish distributing 88 flights among five Taiwanese airlines next week, Lee said, and travelers will be able to start reserving tickets by the latter half of next month.
The additional flights will operate from Jan. 31 to Feb. 28.
The Taiwanese airlines will share 88 additional flights during this time — each week, eight additional flights can be dispatched to Shanghai, four to Shenzhen, five to Beijing and five to Guangzhou. Chinese airlines will also have 88 flights to divide among themselves.
Lee said the distribution of the additional flights would follow several guidelines, including the number of cross-strait regular flights an airline has and its capacity to maximize the efficiency of the cross-strait flight service.
He said the CAA might also consider the ticket prices the airline set when distributing the flights.
Cross-strait flight prices have made the CAA the target of criticism at the legislature and among consumer rights groups.
They say shorter cross-strait flight routes have not translated into cheaper tickets. The nominal price for a Taipei-to-Shanghai ticket is NT$24,000.
“Getting this deal is not easy, and the benefits of the cross-strait flight service should be enjoyed by everyone, not by airlines,” Lee said.
“Airlines should try to offer various special deals to the customers, if they have a conscience,” he said.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his
A rally held by opposition parties yesterday demonstrates that Taiwan is a democratic country, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that if opposition parties really want to fight dictatorship, they should fight it on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) held a protest with the theme “against green communists and dictatorship,” and was joined by the Taiwan People’s Party. Lai said the opposition parties are against what they called the “green communists,” but do not fight against the “Chinese communists,” adding that if they really want to fight dictatorship, they should go to the right place and face
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators
RSS