Taiwan has “silently launched a revolution in East Asia” through the formation of the “Northeast Asia Golden Aviation Circle” forging direct links between Taipei and airports in Tokyo in Japan, Shanghai in China and Seoul in South Korea, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday.
During an inspection visit at the renovated Terminal One and Terminal Two at Taipei International Airport (Songshan), Ma said direct flights between the airport and Shanghai Hongqiao Airport were launched in June last year, while direct flights to Haneda International Airport in Japan began in October last year.
Direct flights between Taipei airport and Gimpo Airport in Seoul — “the last piece of the puzzle,” as Ma called it — in the Northeast Asia Golden Aviation Circle are scheduled to be launched in March.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
“The number of cross-strait flights has increased to 558 per week and the service now covers 41 cities in China,” Ma said. “We have also signed an open-skies agreement with Japan, allowing the nation to dispatch flights to any airport in Japan, except Tokyo, which still restricts the number of flights arriving at the city’s airports.”
“Taiwan has silently launched a revolution in the aviation industry in East Asia. Taiwan will draw many Chinese passengers to transfer via Taiwan to North America or other regions if the revolution continues, which will solidify the status of Taiwan in this region,” he said.
The establishment of direct flights between Taipei, Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul was one of the main promises Ma made during his presidential election campaign in 2008.
Ma said the government set a clear division of labor between Taipei International Airport and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, in which the former serves as the backup airport for the latter and functions as a “small yet beautiful” business airport in the nation’s capital.
The average flight time from Taiwan to any major city in the Asia-Pacific region is 2 hours and 55 minutes, which is shorter than from any other country in the region, Ma said.
This geographical advantage, coupled with direct flights to the three East-Asian cities, is set to make Taiwan the flight hub of Northeast Asia, he said.
“Previously, Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport was the only airport in Taiwan that generated a profit,” Ma said. “However, now Taipei [International Airport], Kaohsiung Hsiaogang and Taichung Cingcyuangang airports have begun to turn a profit as well.”
An increase in the number of international tourists arriving in Taiwan helped boost the development of the aviation industry, he said, adding that the number could reach 6 million this year. He said that the nation attracted 600,000 international tourists last month, which was the highest number of international visitors in a single month so far.
The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) last year began renovating the Taipei International Airport, which has been in operation since 1951. Aside from new facilities, several businesses have opened retail stores at the airport, including Starbucks and Chunshuitang Cultural Tea House.
In related news, the legislature’s Transportation Committee gave its preliminary approval to an amendment to the Civil Aviation Act (民用航空法) that would allow owners of personal jet to fly their aircraft to any airport in Taiwan.
However, the bill needs further negotiation in the legislature.
At present, owners of personal jet are only allowed to arrive at and leave from the same airport in Taiwan. They are also banned from traveling with their jets during their stay in Taiwan.
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
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
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