China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) chairman Hsieh Shih-chien (謝世謙) yesterday said that the airline would no longer accept pre-flight orders of duty-free cigarettes and that mandatory inflight delivery would be reinforced as the company faces a spiraling contraband scandal following President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) return from a state visit to the Caribbean.
“We would also limit cigarette purchase to one carton per person... For a flight of 100 passengers, we would carry only 200 cartons,” Hsieh told a news conference.
Hsieh said he would take full responsibility for the incident, but added that neither he nor CAL senior vice president Young Chang (張揚) was aware of the quantity of cigarettes purchased for the president’s chartered flight.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Hsieh said he has ordered Chang to set up a personnel examination committee to conduct a thorough investigation into employee involvement.
The committee would determine further punishments for employees involved, with a focus on higher-ranking company officials, while rank-and-file employees who simply followed orders would be exonerated, Hsieh said.
National Security Bureau agent Wu Tsung-hsien (吳宗憲) allegedly ordered 9,200 cartons of cigarettes, but CAL’s records show that a total of 10,009 cartons were sold on that flight, with 9,274 cartons preordered.
Hsieh said that all monetary transactions were completed onboard, denying allegations of prepayment by credit card.
“The procedure has not changed in 20 years, ever since we started to manage presidential chartered flights in the 1990s,” Hsieh added.
CAL general auditor Fang Juo-ling (方若玲) said that while CAL has standard operating procedures for its commercial flights, presidential chartered flights have their own procedures and management team.
Fang said that company employees who receive the orders are not obliged to check whether they have surpassed the limit as long as there are enough goods in stock.
While the investigations are ongoing, a few punishments have been meted out, including an initial fine of NT$90,000 on CAL subsidiary China Pacific Catering Services Ltd (CPCS, 華膳空廚) by the Customs Administration for breaching warehouse management regulations, Hsieh said.
Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said he and the minister were displeased with CAL’s response.
Details such as when the company’s relationship with the National Security Bureau began and who the chairperson was at the time remain unexplained, he said.
CAL on Wednesday told him that it was unable to find data prior to 2013 due to an upgrade to its computer system, but Hsieh was able to say that the same situation had happened two decades ago, showing that such data exists, he said.
If Hsieh thinks yesterday’s explanation would end the incident, then the ministry and the China Aviation Development Foundation would accept his resignation if he were to offer it, Wang said, adding that he would still have to take responsibility if Hsieh does not resign or investigate the case.
Additional reporting by Cheng Wei-chi
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