Minister of Transportation and Communications Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) yesterday said the ministry would not allow domestic aviation carriers to increase fares, and added that the ministry would not tolerate threats from any carrier.
Yeh made the statement at the legislature’s Transportation Committee while briefing lawmakers on operations at the Directorate-General of Highways.
Taitung County Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Liu Chao-hao (劉櫂豪) asked Yeh what he thought about comments by EVA Airways (EVA) president Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒) on Tuesday that the company could stop offering domestic flights if the government refuses to allow carriers to increase airfares.
“It is true that rising oil prices have hit profits for domestic flight services,” Yeh said.
“As the administrative body that oversees the civil aviation sector, we need to protect the public’s right to access services while simultaneously ensuring the development of the aviation industry. However, the ministry will not tolerate threats by any airline,” he said.
Yeh also said that the ministry would talk to carriers in an effort to make pricing schemes for domestic flight tickets more flexible, adding that the government would continue to subsidize services to the nation’s outlying islands and remote areas.
The president of the nation’s second-largest carrier has not been shy in his criticism of the government’s aviation policies. Earlier this month, Chang described the Taoyuan Aerotropolis Project at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport as “a blank cartridge.”
In a meeting with reporters on Tuesday, Chang said the Evergreen Group had to turn down an order for aircraft maintenance services because there is not enough land to build a fourth hangar at the airport.
DPP Legislator Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) asked Yeh how the ministry would resolve the problem.
Yeh said the land that EVA wants to build its new hangar on currently holds a private jet apron owned by Sunrise Airlines. He said that the group did not express its wish to acquire the land until after the government has finalized its development plan for the project.
China Airlines (CAL) also wanted to acquire the same plot of land because it is close to the airline’s headquarters, Yeh said, adding that both CAL and Sunrise Airlines had objected to selling the land to EVA.
Yeh said the ministry thought using the land for a maintenance hangar would be inefficient because it would impede airport development in the long term.
The ministry has helped the airline locate farmland near the airport for its planned hangar, but Yeh said it would take time to expropriate and develop the land.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods