The Fair Trade Commission yesterday fined China Airlines and EVA Airways a combined NT$32 million (US$1.85 million) for failing to lower airfares on cross-strait flights and engaging in practices that compromise the free market.
The commission said that since April last year, media had widely reported on the high cost of airfares on flights across the Taiwan Strait, despite the decreased travel time and distance. The criticism, combined with negotiations between the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the two airlines, resulted in the two companies agreeing to cut prices of cross-strait flights.
However, an investigation by the commission showed that despite the lowered airfares, the average cost of cross-strait tickets had risen because of a larger proportion of more expensive first and business-class tickets and a substantially lower proportion of economy-class tickets.
Photo: Yao Chieh-hsiu, Taipei Times
Fair Trade Commission Vice Commissioner Shih Hui-fen (施惠芬) said the two airlines had raised the proportion of more expensive tickets so that travelers had difficulty booking in economy, which tended to sell out quickly, leaving travelers no choice but to book more expensive seats.
Citing data collected by the commission, Shih said that proportionally, first and business class tickets sold by China Airlines in January last year accounted for 20.63 percent of those in economy, a figure that rose to 39.28 percent in April and peaked at 82.69 percent in June.
In the case of EVA, first and business class tickets sold in January last year accounted for 30.47 percent of those in economy, rising to 54.16 percent in April and 64.37 percent in June, she said.
“While it may appear that the two airlines cut fares for individual [cross-strait] tickets, in actuality, the average price of tickets has risen,” Shih said.
The investigation also showed that the two airlines did not give travel agencies much room for offering discounts on cross-strait flights.
The commission said China Airlines has about 30 percent of the cross-strait market, while EVA has about 20 percent, and as a result the practices adopted by the two companies severely undermined fair trade.
The commission fined China Airlines about NT$20 million and EVA NT$12 million for violating the Fair Trade Act (公平交易法).
At a press conference late yesterday, Deputy Transportation and Communications Minister Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) said the commission was an independent body and that it was not obligated to inform the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) that it was investigating pricing mechanisms.
Furthermore, the CAA does not have the authority to intervene in such an investigation, Yeh said.
However, Yeh said that the investigation was conducted between April and October last year when the World Expo was being held in Shanghai, adding that fares fell from November.
“The prices reflected supply and the demand,” Yeh said. “Supply and demand are out of balance.”
To increase supply, Yeh said the ministry would seek to raise the number of cross-strait flights during the next round of negotiations with Beijing.
Additional reporting by Shelley Shan
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater