Wed, Jul 26, 2000 page17

• Terminal Two ready for take-off

  HUB Officials hope that with its Terminal Two upgrade set to open this week, CKS International Airport will become a major center for trans-Pacific air traffic

  • By Brent Hannon / SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR
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  When Terminal Two opens on Friday at CKS International Airport, it will nearly double the airport's passenger capacity and bring a welcome new level of passenger comfort.

  The new US$580 million Terminal Two was built to make Taiwan a hub for Asian traffic, and to accommodate growth in trans-Pacific traffic, said CKS airport managing director Wang Te-ho (王德和).

  Taiwan's geography makes it a key location in Asia and this will help make CKS airport a major transportation center in Asia, said Wang.

  

  Visitors walk through CKS International Airport's new Terminal Two. Experts have voiced their concern that the terminal, built at a cost of US$580 million, will be underutilized as Taiwan currently does not offer direct flights to China, South Korea nor the Philippines. The terminal is set to open on Friday.

  PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES

  But Taiwan faces serious competition for the lucrative airline traffic.

  Tokyo is the top trans-Pacific hub and it has direct connections to cities throughout China, while Hong Kong, also a trans-Pacific hub, has flights to 18 cities in China.

  "I don't think Taipei is in much of a position, politically or geographically, to become a regional air hub," said Jim Eckes, managing director of Indoswiss Aviation, a Hong Kong based consultancy. "Hong Kong and Tokyo are both in a heck of a lot better position than Taipei."

  Taiwan not only lacks direct flights to China, but it also lacks direct flights to Korea and the Philippines. The once-busy Korea-Taiwan corridor has been served only by third-country carriers since a dispute in 1992, and Philippines flights have been suspended since October 1999."The new terminal is a good start, but they have a long way to go," said Eckes.

  In any case, the new terminal will ease overcrowding at CKS, where passenger traffic has grown an average of 10 percent each year for the past decade. The new terminal will provide 158 more check-in counters and 10 more aircraft parking gates with bridges.

  When the north concourse is added to Terminal Two in 2003, it will add another 10 attached gates, and seven remote sites.

  Altogether the new terminal will increase airport capacity from 6,000 passengers per hour to 11,000 and will increase annual passenger capacity by 17 million passengers per year.

  The old terminal was built 21 years ago to process eight million passengers per year and by 1990 it had already reached that number.

  Last year alone, 18 million people passed through CKS.

  While the south concourse and the Terminal Two building will open July 28, the people mover system -- a train link between the two terminals -- will not be ready until October 2001. Buses will link the two terminals until the train is finished.

  A high-speed train to Taipei is on the drawing board and a completion date has been set for 2003, but Wang expects it to be delayed for one or two years. When finished, the train will reduce the trip to Taipei from one hour to about 30 minutes.

  EVA Air (長榮航空 ) is moving into the new terminal, along with Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways, Qantas, Air Canada and EVA subsidiary UNI Air.

  "It's a good chance for us to improve our image," said Austin Cheng (鄭傳義), deputy director of the EVA airport office. "Besides, we have to move as China Airlines already occupies the good slots at Terminal One."

  EVA and the other five airlines will occupy 60 percent of the available slot space in the first stage of Terminal Two, before the north concourse is completed. Altogether, those airlines account for 30 percent of the total passenger traffic at CKS.

  Singapore Airlines and United have also expressed interest in moving to the new terminal, said Wang. When the north concourse is finished in three years, Cathay Pacific may also transfer. Several airlines that considered moving to Terminal Two have chosen to stay in Terminal One, said Wang, including Thai Airways and TransAsia Airways. "For whatever reason, they have changed their minds," said Wang.

  China Airlines (CAL, 華航) has decided not to move into the new terminal, as the first phase (south concourse only) does not have enough gates to accommodate all its operations. However, when the north concourse opens in 2003, CAL may consider moving some operations to the new terminal.

  The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) had hoped to open the new terminal in January, but that date was eventually pushed back to July 28. In February, EVA sent a list of demands for the CAA to fulfill before it would agree to move.

  "Otherwise it might have been a disaster," said EVA's Cheng. "But we are ready to move."

  EVA's biggest worry is the readiness of the automated baggage system, said EVA deputy senior vice president Nieh (聶國維), even though the airline and the CAA have tested the system many times. If problems arise, the airline can always revert to the manual baggage system used in Terminal One.

  CKS has a reputation for quick aircraft turnaround times and efficient, no-frills passenger service, but Terminal Two will be even faster, said Wang.

  Each departure lounge has a dedicated security check, which will eliminate long lines at the X-ray machines and will also eliminate the need for transit passengers to pass through a secure area and then through security a second time.

  Arriving passengers will benefit the most. "Currently, it takes nearly 20 minutes to pass through CKS, but we hope to reduce that to 12 minutes, the same as [Singapore's] Changi Airport," said Wang.

  The new terminal will allow ground handlers to offload luggage more quickly and the automated baggage system and new carousels are also more efficient. New immigration officials have been hired, and customs will institute random checks in place of the comprehensive checks now required in Terminal One.

  The new terminal should be more pleasant for passengers. Besides being crowded, the old terminal is shabby and run-down, especially compared with Terminal Two, which has high skylight ceilings, comfortable passenger and VIP lounges and more space for shops, restaurants, duty free and art work.

  The main building and south concourse of Terminal Two have 23 percent more floor space than the existing terminal.

  Terminal Two will provide increased Internet access, 22 day rooms with showers and a convention hall with a large conference room and three meeting rooms. The VIP lounges will be four times bigger than the existing lounges and, unlike in the old terminal, the VIP lounges come after passport control, not before. In the old terminal, all the VIP lounges except EVA and CAL precede passport control.

  All charges, including airport tax, landing fees, ground handling fees and transportation into Taipei will remain the same as before, said Wang. Last year, CKS made a profit of NT$6.4 billion (US$206 million) and the new terminal was paid for by the revenue it generated.

  CKS will be able to expand further if necessary. Because the airport opened with two parallel runways with a separation of 1,507m, servicing more flights is a simple matter of building new terminals between the runways. A third terminal is already planned and land is available for a third runway, if demand requires.

  That demand might come from cross-strait travel. Taiwanese traffic to China has increased dramatically since Taiwanese were first allowed to travel to China in 1987.

  Last year, nearly two million Taiwanese visited China, most of them transiting in Hong Kong and Macau.

  There is also pent-up demand in China for travel to Taiwan, said CAL spokesman Scott Shih (石怲惺). "If the government in Taiwan is willing to open a small door for Chinese to travel to Taiwan, then the traffic would be fantastic," he said.
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