The Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport moved up two notches to No. 13 among the world’s top 100 airports in Skytrax’s annual survey, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said yesterday.
This was the best overall grade that the airport has achieved in recent years, the company said, adding that the airport captured the eighth spot among airports in Asia.
The survey this year included for the first time an airport’s accessibility for people with reduced mobility, with the Taoyuan airport coming in at No. 9, the company said.
Photo courtesy of Taiwan International Airport Corp
Despite an overall improvement in ranking, Taoyuan airport saw its position slip in certain categories.
In terms of cleanliness, it dropped from No. 4 to No. 8, while its staff service ranking slid from No. 3 to No. 7.
The airport placed fourth in both security processing and baggage delivery last year, but fell to No. 8 and No. 7 respectively this year.
Although the airport was rated No. 1 in terms of immigration service last year, its ranking slid to No. 4.
In the category of best airports with leisure amenities, Taoyuan dropped out of the top 10 this year after ranking seventh last year.
In other news, people booking flights on a Sunday for trips on a Friday are likely to get the lowest possible fare, a study by Expedia and Airlines Reporting Corp showed.
The annual report, Travel Pricing Outlook in 2019, was produced by analyzing air ticket trends for the world’s most popular domestic and international routes between Oct. 1, 2017, and Sept. 30 last year, Expedia said, adding that this year’s report includes money-saving strategies for booking hotels.
The results of the study showed that the best time to book flights is three weeks before departure, when travelers are more likely to get the lowest fares.
Meanwhile, people booking flights on a Sunday could save up to 21.9 percent in airfares, the largest saving compared with tickets purchased on other days, whereas those booking tickets on a Friday are likely to get a price that is 3.7 percent higher than the average, the study found.
“We also recommend that travelers leave for trips on a Friday instead of Sunday,” with the study showing that airfares would be 4.1 percent lower than the average, Expedia said.
Meanwhile, booking hotels on a Friday provides the best chance for the lowest average daily rate, while Sunday is likely to be the most costly, it said.
As to the assumption that direct flights cost more than non-direct ones, the report found that travelers care more about the time and cost spent in changing flights than the airfare.
Direct flights could also be relatively cheaper, depending on the route’s popularity or if it is off-peak season, it said.
“Our research also showed that ticket prices will not immediately rise when an airline announces that it will raise the fuel surcharge. As such, travelers need not postpone trips because of the fuel surcharge adjustment,” Expedia said.
The best time to buy tickets would be a few days to one week after airlines announce new fuel surcharges for short or long-haul flights, Expedia said.
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