An open skies agreement (OSA) between Taiwan and New Zealand, which is included in the economic cooperation agreement that the two countries signed yesterday, would set no limit on the number of passenger and cargo flights, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said.
According to the agency, the OSA would allow airlines in both countries to determine the number of cargo and passenger flights they choose to offer. Based on the terms of the agreement, Taiwanese airlines will be able to dispatch flights to New Zealand via a third country. They will also enjoy the fifth freedom of the air — allowing them to pick up passengers in New Zealand and continue flying to another destination. The same privileges are to be enjoyed by flight carriers in New Zealand if they seek to offer flight services to Taiwan.
Aside from New Zealand, Taiwan has OSAs with the US, Japan and Singapore.
The OSA between Taiwan and New Zealand would replace the previous aviation pact that the two countries signed on May 28, 1996, the agency said.
Currently, flight services between Taiwan and New Zealand are operated by China Airlines, which launched the service in 2011. Under the current aviation pact, each side is only allowed seven passenger flights per week.
China Airlines offers three flights per week from Taoyuan to Auckland via Brisbane, Australia, and four flights to Auckland via Sydney, Australia, with the average occupancy rate for the Auckland-bound flights at about 80 percent. The airline said it would evaluate the possibility of increasing flight frequency.
EVA Airways stopped its flight service to New Zealand in 2008. The airline said it currently has no plans of reentering the market and would gauge market demand before considering resuming flight services.
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