The Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) yesterday said that it has moved some international airlines from Terminal Two to Terminal One at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to ease the congestion caused by an increase in passenger numbers in recent years.
TIAC senior vice president Wen Yung-sung (溫永松) said that the passenger volume in the nation’s largest international airport is predicted to top 34 million this year. Terminal One was designed to accommodate 15 million passengers per year, while Terminal Two was designed for a maximum of 17 million passengers annually, he said.
The number of outbound passengers could reach 6,500 during peak hours, while the number of inbound passengers could top 5,000 in peak hours, he said.
The crowded check-in areas mean passengers are likely to experience a decline in service quality, he said.
“Ideally, the percentage of passengers accessing Terminal One to those in Terminal Two should be 47 percent to 53 percent. However, renovation work in Terminal One meant we had to change the ratio to 39 percent to 61 percent,” Wen said.
“Starting in November 2012, we began encouraging airlines assigned to Terminal Two to move to Terminal One. New airlines starting service from Taiwan will all be placed in Terminal One,” he said.
Renovation work in Terminal One was completed in June last year.
According to Wen, the airlines that had voluntarily moved to Terminal One were mostly low-cost carriers, such as AirAsia, Peach Aviation, Vanilla Air and Spring Airlines.
Emirates, which launched flights from Taiwan in February, as well as the Moscow-based Transaero Airlines, which launched a Moscow-Taipei route last week, are also based at Terminal One, he said.
In principle, the budget airlines will all operate from Terminal One in the future, he said.
The challenging part of the relocation was that the airlines were simply reluctant to move, since it involved shifting their offices, check-in counters and personnel, he said.
Passengers had to get used to leaving from a different terminal as well, he said, noting that AirAsia had to inform its passengers as well as partner travel agencies about the change in its location at the airport.
Relocating some airlines to Terminal One has helped adjust the passenger ratio between the two terminals, creating a ratio of 43 percent to 57 percent as of last month, ensuring that the service quality could be maintained at a certain level, TIAC said.
TIAC announced this week that Terminal Three would not be ready for use until 2021, instead of the original schedule of 2018.
TIAC president David Fei (費鴻鈞) said that the company had previously estimated passenger growth through 2030.
The company later decided to reassess passenger growth through 2032, which consequently meant the terminal’s capacity needed to be increased and the construction period had to be extended, he said.
In the meantime, TIAC will expand Terminal Two’s service area by about 20,000m2 to meet the demand brought about by the rapid growth in passengers.
Company statistics showed that the average passenger growth in the Taoyuan airport between January and May this year was 13.23 percent.
The number of passengers in May grew by 21.74 percent over May last year.
In comparison, Singapore Changi Airport, Narita International Airport in Japan, Hong Kong International Airport and Incheon International Airport in South Korea saw passenger growth ranging from 1.76 percent to 7.56 percent in May, TIAC said.
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