A total of 116 Taiwanese yesterday morning arrived home from Warsaw on board a charter flight operated by LOT Polish Airlines, after being stranded in the European country for months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was also the first-ever direct passenger flight between Taiwan and Poland, said the Polish Office in Taipei, the de facto Polish embassy in Taiwan in the absence of diplomatic relations.
The two countries signed an air transport agreement in March 2015.
Photo: Tony Yao, Taipei Times
The airplane landed at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 6:24am after a 13-hour flight.
The plane had to make a three-hour detour, as it was not allowed to fly over China.
The passengers, mostly students and businesspeople, were quarantined upon arrival for 14 days in accordance with the Central Epidemic Command Center’s instructions after undergoing initial health checks.
The charter flight was made possible through the efforts of Lin’s International Consulting Co Ltd, an overseas student service, and coordination between Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration and LOT.
It took the parties involved three to four weeks to arrange the charter flight, Lin’s International said.
There would be three more such flights to evacuate Taiwanese from Poland in the near term, the company said.
Without the charter flights, the Taiwanese in Poland would have had to travel to Germany by land for more than 10 hours before they could board a flight home, which could increase the risk of infection, it added.
The Taoyuan airport assigned ground personnel and cleaning staff as early as 2am to prepare for the arrival and arranged six buses to take the passengers to designated quarantine centers.
‘SECRETS’: While saying China would not attack during his presidency, Donald Trump declined to say how Washington would respond if Beijing were to take military action US President Donald Trump said that China would not take military action against Taiwan while he is president, as the Chinese leaders “know the consequences.” Trump made the statement during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes program that aired on Sunday, a few days after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea. “He [Xi] has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘we would never do anything while President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said in the interview. However, he repeatedly declined to say exactly how Washington would respond in
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday that China using armed force against Taiwan could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, allowing the country to mobilize the Japanese armed forces under its security laws. Takaichi made the remarks during a parliamentary session yesterday while responding to a question about whether a "Taiwan contingency" involving a Chinese naval blockade would qualify as a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, according to a report by Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. "If warships are used and other armed actions are involved, I believe this could constitute a survival- threatening
WARFARE: All sectors of society should recognize, unite, and collectively resist and condemn Beijing’s cross-border suppression, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said The number of Taiwanese detained because of legal affairs by Chinese authorities has tripled this year, as Beijing intensified its intimidation and division of Taiwanese by combining lawfare and cognitive warfare, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) made the statement in response to questions by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Puma Shen (沈柏洋) about the government’s response to counter Chinese public opinion warfare, lawfare and psychological warfare. Shen said he is also being investigated by China for promoting “Taiwanese independence.” He was referring to a report published on Tuesday last week by China’s state-run Xinhua news agency,
‘ADDITIONAL CONDITION’: Taiwan will work with like-minded countries to protect its right to participate in next year’s meeting, the foreign ministry said The US will “continue to press China for security arrangements and protocols that safeguard all participants when attending APEC meetings in China,” a US Department of State spokesperson said yesterday, after Beijing suggested that members must adhere to its “one China principle” to participate. “The United States insists on the full and equal participation of all APEC member economies — including Taiwan — consistent with APEC’s guidelines, rules and established practice, as affirmed by China in its offer to host in 2026,” the unnamed spokesperson said in response to media queries about China putting a “one China” principle condition on Taiwan’s
RSS