Far Eastern Air Transport (FAT) resumed flight services yesterday after being grounded for two years because of financial problems.
The first flight leaving for Kinmen took off from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) at 9:30am.
FAT president Chang Kang-wei (張綱維) said at an inauguration ceremony that the airline would initially offer two daily flights between Taipei and Kaohsiung.
Photo: CNA
He said the company was planning to expand its flight services to Makong (馬公) and Kaohsiung and resume international flight services to Angkor Wat in Cambodia and to Palau.
Chang said the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) was planning to re-arrange cross-straight flight services either next month or in June, and FAT would be able to reclaim the 15 cross-strait flights previously reserved for the company before its services were suspended.
Those 15 cross-strait flights are currently shared equally by five other carriers — China Airlines, EVA Air, Uni Air, Mandarin Airlines and TransAsia Airways.
“The day we launch cross-strait flight services is the day we become profitable,” Chang said.
The CAA suspended FAT’s operations in 2008 because of financial problems and the airline’s management has changed several times since then.
The company filed a financial restructuring plan with the Taipei District Court, which approved the company’s plan in 2009.
Chang said many had doubted that the company would be able to start operations again.
“The CAA used the highest standards to examine our plan to resume flights and we also demanded the highest standards of ourselves,” Chang said, adding that the company would undertake quality maintenance and provide new services.
Chang, a property developer who took over FAT in July 2009, said the airline was funded entirely by his personal investment.
He added that the number of the staff had also grown from 40 to 500 under his leadership.
The company owns 10 aircraft, three of which have passed the CAA’s air worthiness test.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to