Air carriers in Taiwan and China are to offer additional flights for Taiwanese heading home for the Lunar New Year holiday next month, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said yesterday.
The additional flights are to be offered from Jan. 11 to Feb. 8, the agency said, adding that both sides have agreed on the program’s details.
As in the past, the two sides would only limit the number of additional flights departing from certain Chinese airports, the agency said, adding that it would not limit the total number of additional flights that carriers can offer.
The number of additional flights would be capped at 147 at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, nine at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, 23 at Shengzhen Baoan International Airport and 17 at Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport, the agency said, adding that no additional flight would be offered from Beijing, as no airline has filed a request to do so.
Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) and Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport are not covered by the program, it said, urging carriers to pay attention to the rule when applying to offer additional flights.
Regulators from both sides have expressed the wish to approve the airlines’ applications by Tuesday next week so that cross-strait travelers can start booking tickets, the agency said.
Due to the Jan. 11 presidential and legislative elections, it has proposed that additional flights be offered on Jan. 9 and 10 as well so that Taiwanese working or studying in China can return home to vote.
Taiwanese carriers have proposed dispatching two extra flights from Pudong and one from Shengzhen on the two dates, the agency said.
On the other hand, Chinese carriers have proposed offering four additional flights from Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport and three from Pudong, it said, adding that civil aviation authorities from both sides have agreed to quickly approve the additional flights.
“The additional flights are being offered due to Taiwan’s internal affairs and are different from those provided for homebound travelers for the Lunar New Year holiday. Consumer disputes could arise if a carrier uses unusually low fares to attract passengers for additional flights on these two days, therefore we will handle this matter under the principle that the two sides are equal entities, and closely monitor ticket prices and the load factor of these flights,” it said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
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