Flights using Taichung airport are to be managed more efficiently after a new runway is put into use by the end of next year, the Civil Aeronautics Administration said yesterday.
Agency Deputy Director General Fang Chih-wen (方志文) said aircraft would have reduced taxi distances to reach the terminal with the new runway, saving about three minutes.
According to the agency, the project is part of a construction plan approved by the Executive Yuan in July 2008, according to which two runways are to be built.
Fang said a consulting firm has finished the design of the second runway, adding that the bid for the construction is scheduled to be finalized in October.
Statistics from the agency showed that passenger volume at the airport grew from 1.8 million in 2013 to 2.18 million last year. The number of aircraft using the airport increased from 22,120 in 2013 to 25,277 last year.
Regarding the possibility of moving Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport), Fang said the issue could only be discussed after the third runway at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport becomes operational.
Fang said that Songshan airport serves about 3 million passengers per year, while Taoyuan airport does not have the capacity to absorb that additional volume if it were to take over Songshan’s load while the Taipei facility was being moved.
He said that most of the land in the Songshan area is owned by the military, adding that the airport serves domestic flights arriving from the nation’s outlying islands.
All of these stakeholders must sit down and talk about issues related to a possible move, he said.
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