The government aims to reshape the image of the Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) as one of the nation’s main gateways with a new development plan in the second half of this year.
Built in 1936, the nation’s first airport was once its only international airport. After Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport was established in the 1970s, Songshan airport became a domestic airport for a number of years.
Domestic passenger volume began declining after the high-speed rail system opened in 2007. However, the airport’s fate turned when cross-strait direct flights began in 2008, and it resumed international service with a massive passenger increase.
The airport received a further boost when it joined the Northeast Golden Aviation Circle, which connects Taipei to Shanghai, Seoul and Tokyo.
Travelers can fly from Songshan to Shanghai Hongqiao airport, Gimpo airport in Seoul and Haneda airport in Tokyo. These airports are closer to their respective city centers than to the main international airports in the host nations.
To accommodate international passengers, the airport first completed twin terminal renovations.
Terminal One serves international passengers, while Terminal Two serves domestic travelers.
The airport built an observation deck to allow visitors to view aircraft up close.
The Civil Aeronautics Administration said the new plan would not only create a new image for the national gateway, but also stimulate growth for the airport and surrounding areas.
The agency said that passengers who take buses to the airport or who walk from the terminals to the parking lots must be extremely careful when crossing busy roads.
The new plan would remove the ground-level parking lot and add underground parking, the agency said, adding that the former parking lot would become a bus depot, with construction expected to be finished in 2021 or 2022.
Beyond improving traffic inside the airport, the plan would also add office and train facilities for the civil aviation industry, as well as international hotels, a conference center and a shopping mall.
The proposal could draw private sector investments via the build-operate-transfer model, with cost estimates ranging from NT$20 billion to NT$40 billion (US$639 million to US$1.28 billion), the agency said.
The Taipei City Government would need to conduct an urban planning review on the project, the agency added.
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