Despite being statistically one of the most dangerous carriers in the world, China Airlines Co (
In a survey of tour leaders and travel agents, Common Health (康健雜誌) magazine -- a sister publication of the popular CommonWealth (天下雜誌) magazine -- reported in its July edition that respondents said that out of the 29 airlines that service routes to Taiwan, China Airlines ranked number two in terms of healthiness.
The measure of healthiness was arrived at by asking questions about such factors as seat comfort, service attitude, cabin space, in-flight meals, humidity, noise, audio and video entertainment, lavatory cleanliness and flight safety record.
Of the 905 surveys sent out, only 274 or 30.28 percent were returned prior to the China Airlines crash on May 25.
Singapore Airlines Ltd (
But while ranking number one in the individual categories of seat comfort, service attitude, in-flight meals and health information, China Airlines did not score high on flight safety, even though the survey was taken before the May crash.
However, the rankings appear to diverge from the statistics, as China Airlines was ranked at number six in terms of flight safety, despite the fact that the air carrier had been viewed as one of the most dangerous air carriers in the world, even prior to the crash.
Australia's Qantas Airlines, which has never experienced a fatal event was ranked just above China Airlines at number five.
Singapore Airlines, which suffered 83 fatalities at Taiwan's Chiang Kai Shek International Airport during a takeoff roll in October 2000, was ranked number one in this category, trailed by EVA and Cathay Pacific.
Remarkably, in light of China Airlines' strong showing, respondents ranked airline flight safety as the second most important factor in assessing in-flight health.
In the ten fatal incidents involving China Airlines flights since 1970, 801 passengers have perished, making it arguably the deadliest carrier in the world.
China Airlines over the weekend offered the families of victims of its May 25 crash NT$6.5 million per victim for emergency use. The disaster claimed 225 lives. The emergency funds will be deducted from the final amount of compensation paid. The amount of compensation has yet to be arrived at.
* A recent magazine survey revealed that tour leaders and travel agents believe that of all air carriers servicing Taiwan, only Singapore airlines ranks higher that China Airlines in terms of in-flight health.
* Paradoxically, the same respondents contended that airline safety is the second-most significant factor in assessing in-flight health.
SEMICONDUCTOR SERVICES: A company executive said that Taiwanese firms must think about how to participate in global supply chains and lift their competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it expects to launch its first multifunctional service center in Pingtung County in the middle of 2027, in a bid to foster a resilient high-tech facility construction ecosystem. TSMC broached the idea of creating a center two or three years ago when it started building new manufacturing capacity in the US and Japan, the company said. The center, dubbed an “ecosystem park,” would assist local manufacturing facility construction partners to upgrade their capabilities and secure more deals from other global chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Infineon Technologies AG, TSMC said. It
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now