The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) yesterday denied that it has rejected requests for additional cross-strait flights for the Lunar New Year holiday, adding that Taiwan and China are still in discussions.
The CAA’s statement came after China’s Civil Aviation Administration said Taiwan had rejected a request to talk about the details of offering additional flights between Jan. 4 and Feb. 15 to transport people returning to Taiwan for the holiday.
“Following precedent, we are still gauging the demand for additional cross-strait flights for the Lunar New Year holiday by surveying Taiwanese businesspeople and students in China. We are also ascertaining the airlines’ capacity for offering more flights,” the CAA said. “However, we have only talked about charter flights and have yet to discuss providing additional [scheduled] cross-strait flights.”
Taiwan pays close attention to the needs of cross-strait travelers during the Lunar New Year holiday, and civil aviation officials in both nations have set up a mechanism to communicate about issues related to cross-strait flights, it said.
“Due to a significant decrease in the number of Chinese tourists, a large percentage of regular flights across the [Taiwan] Strait have not been fully utilized. We are conducting a survey to see if there is still a need for additional flights,” the CAA said.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
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A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it