Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) will soon offer a number of services for wealthy business travelers.
The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said there were plans to build an aircraft depot and passages to terminals for private jets.
Because of the airport’s proximity to downtown Taipei, it has become a destination for private jets. According to CAA statistics, a total of 367 private jets landed and departed from the airport during the past seven months.
“Businesspeople traveling frequently between Taipei, Tokyo and Shanghai are our target clients,” Civil Aeronautics Administration Deputy Director-General Chen Tien-tsyh (陳天賜) said.
Songshan airport’s plan to upgrade facilities for private jets came after a recent announcement by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport that it would also start the trial operation of a private jet center next month, adding that the deluxe service would reduce the time for boarding procedures for international passengers from two hours to 40 minutes.
Meanwhile, Chuang I-chin, Taipei Songshan Airport Intelligent Library director, yesterday said that the library had attracted more than 20,000 readers since it opened in June.
Songshan airport opened the nation’s first airport library in an effort to diversify services for travelers.
The library, which is not staffed, is equipped with an automatic checkout system so travelers can serve themselves.
Locals and foreigners can borrow books using an EasyCard, the electronic card widely used in -Taipei to pay for public transport or buy products.
With publications ranging from travel and language to popular culture, Chaung said many use the library before boarding to find an ideal travel companion.
As almost all the library’s 10,000 books are in Chinese, she said, her priority is to build up a collection in foreign languages.
Citing the example of Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, which established the world’s first airport library last year, CAA officials said it was a smart way to showcase the country.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS