The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) has approved an application by Far Eastern Air Transport Corp to resume services after more than two years of suspension because of financial troubles, the CAA said yesterday.
CAA Director-General Yin Chen-pong (尹承蓬) confirmed the approval of the application, saying it was likely that the carrier would return to the market during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, which begins on Feb. 2.
The carrier has submitted a financial plan with the CAA in a bid to win approval to fly again. The CAA will be watching closely how the company carries out its financial plan after it restarts its business.
According to the CAA, while the application for business resumption has been approved, the agency will conduct further inspections on the carrier’s preparations for restarting services before allowing ticket sales.
The inspections, which are scheduled to start next week, will include screening ticket prices, examinations of inflight equipment and aircraft take-off and landing, and a review of the operations of the carrier’s check-in counters.
Two of the airline’s three MD83 planes have undergone a test flight program, but the two aircraft are not allowed to carry passengers.
Yin suggested Far Eastern Air seek approval first to provide charter flight services during the Lunar New Year holidays if the carrier needs more time to prepare for the resumption of regular flights.
The carrier said it would file an application to fly between Taipei and the Kinmen during the six-day holiday period, which is peak season for the air transportation sector.
Far Eastern Air’s flight operations were suspended in May 2008 amid financial difficulties and wage disputes.
The airline reportedly had debts of more than NT$10 billion (US$340.5 million) when it requested bankruptcy protection in February 2008 in the biggest crisis it had encountered since it was set up in 1957.
Environmental groups yesterday filed an appeal with the Executive Yuan, seeking to revoke the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conditionally approved in February for the Hsieh-ho Power Plant’s planned fourth liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coast of Keelung. The appeal was filed jointly by the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group, the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and the Keelung City Taiwan Head Cultural Association, which together held a news conference outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei. Explaining the reasons for the appeal, Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) of the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group said that the EIA failed to address
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
Labor rights groups yesterday called on the Ministry of Labor to protect migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing industry, days after CNN reported alleged far-ranging abuses in the sector, including deaths and forced work. The ministry must enforce domestic labor protection laws on Taiwan-owned deep-sea fishing vessels, the Coalition for Human Rights for Migrant Fishers told a news conference outside the ministry in Taipei after presenting a petition to officials. CNN on Sunday reported that Taiwanese seafood giant FCF Co, the owners of the US-based Bumble Bee Foods, committed human rights abuses against migrant fishers, citing Indonesian migrant fishers. The alleged abuses included denying