The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), travel agents and airlines have proposed ways to protect travelers ahead of a possible strike by EVA Airways flight attendants.
Members of the Taoyuan Flight Attendants’ Union, which consists of China Airlines and EVA flight attendants, is on Monday next week scheduled to begin voting on whether the EVA flight attendants should go on strike.
The union has about 5,700 members, of whom 3,100 are EVA flight attendants.
EVA flight attendants have said that they would not go on strike if the motion does not secure the approval of at least 2,850 union members and 2,480 EVA flight attendants.
As the vote is scheduled to run until June 6, many have expressed concern that a strike would affect summer travelers.
In view of likely disruptions a strike would have on travelers, CAA officials on Monday met with representatives from the travel industry, airlines, the Tourism Bureau and the Consumer Protection Committee.
The CAA said that it would ask EVA to keep the public appraised about its dispute with the union, as well as on measures it would undertake to protect consumers.
Not only should the airline make announcements through the news media or through the Taiwan Stock Exchange’s market observation post system, it must also provide information on changes to flights and measures to accommodate passengers affected by the labor dispute, it said.
“Once the airline knows when a strike will take place, it must find ways to tell consumers in advance about any flights that would be canceled or delayed,” CAA Air Transport Division Director Han Chen-hua (韓振華) said.
Airline representatives stressed the importance of the union giving prior notice for any planned strike, saying that they already have rules governing passenger refunds in the event that flights are changed.
However, they said that they would not know how many flights would be affected by a strike if they do not know when it is to take place, which would make it impossible for them to follow procedures to handle requests for refunds caused by the strike.
Travel agents agreed with the airlines on the advance notice, but said that they should not be held responsible for consumers’ losses caused by a strike and urged the bureau to change the terms of the standardized contract between travel agents and travelers.
Travel agents have been asking for strikes by airline workers to be listed among reasons for breaches of contract that cannot be attributed to travel agencies since a strike by China Airlines pilots in February, for which they were asked to bear additional accommodation costs by travelers stranded overseas.
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