The increasing number of South Korean tourists has caused some airline companies to schedule new flights between Taiwan and South Korea, the Civil Aeronautics Administration said.
There are 91 flights between Taiwan and Korea each week, according to administration data. The flights between Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Incheon International Airport are filled to 82 percent of capacity on average, while flights between the Taipei International Airport and Gimpo International Airport are filled to 88 percent capacity on average.
EVA Airways is to increase the number of flights between Taoyuan and Incheon airports from nine to 18 flights per week, the administration said, adding that the company is also getting ready to add a new destination that would carry passengers between Taichung Airport and Incheon twice a week.
Uni Air and Mandarin Airlines are also set to launch new flights from Taoyuan to Incheon, offering three and seven flights per week, the administration said.
All the carriers are scheduled to launch their services by the end of March, it said, adding that South Korean budget airline Jin Air is planning to resume flights to Taiwan by the end of the same month.
The Tourist Bureau attributed the increase of South Korean tourists to the appreciation of the won and the popularity of Korean reality show Grandpas Over Flowers, which featured tourist destinations in Taiwan.
The bureau said that about 589,000 South Korean tourists visited Taiwan between January and November last year, accounting for a 23 percent growth compared with 2014.
The bureau said that most Korean tourists travel with tour groups and visit Yehliu Geopark, Taroko Gorge National Park and Taipei, with some signing up for golf tours.
Individual South Korean tourists prefer to visit Tamsui, Jiufen and Dadaocheng and Yongkang Street, the bureau 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