Starting today, travelers can transit through the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport before flying to a third country, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said this week, after the transit service had been suspended for more than one year.
The airport operator resumed the service after the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Saturday further eased border control measures that were imposed to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The center has also lifted the ban on inbound passengers being picked up by friends and relatives at the airport.
Photo courtesy of Taoyuan International Airport Corp
On Monday afternoon, the company conducted a drill to ensure that all stakeholders at the airport are familiar with the new procedures, from guiding transit passengers to the security checkpoint and dining areas to ensuring that relatives pick up international arrivals in the designated areas.
The drill proceeded smoothly as the duties had been divided among airline personnel, duty-free shop workers, and Aviation Police Bureau and Centers for Disease Control officers, TIAC president Jerry Dan (但昭璧) said following the practice run.
“Allowing international arrivals to be picked up by their friends and relatives will greatly shorten the time they wait at the airport,” he said.
Upon disembarking, transit passengers would be guided by airline crew to a security checkpoint, and then wait for reboarding at designated boarding gates or VIP rooms, TIAC said.
Duty-free purchases or meals ordered would be delivered to them, the company said.
In addition to wearing a designated sticker, transit passengers would have to wear a mask and disinfect their hands, and airport personnel would read their temperature, it said, adding that terminal areas visited by the passengers would be cleaned and disinfected.
Arrivals remaining in Taipei could get a ride from family or friends, or take a quarantine taxi, the company said.
Friends and relatives must wait for arrivals in the international arrival terminal’s waiting area, it said, adding that they cannot park in the pickup zone outside.
Offenders would be fined by the Aviation Police Bureau, it added.
The airport suspended services to transit passengers on May 19 last year after the COVID-19 alert was raised to level 3.
Also taking effect today, international arrivals are to undergo a three-day home quarantine followed by a four-day self-initiated epidemic prevention period.
Arrivals must present a negative polymerase chain reaction test result within two days of flying to Taiwan and there is an initial cap of 25,000 arrivals per week.
In other news, the Travel Bureau has proposed that the requirement that people in domestic tour groups have a booster shot of a COVID-19 vaccine be waived, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said.
“Some travel agencies told us that most of those on local tours are elderly people, many of whom have yet to get a booster shot. The requirement has prompted them to cancel half of the tours,” Wang said. “We have written to the CECC with the hope that they can drop the booster shot requirement for domestic tour groups, just as they did for gym members.”
COMMITMENT: The world’s biggest contract chipmaker said that its new 2nm chips, as well as next-generation, cutting-edge 1.4nm chips, will be produced in Taiwan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that the majority of its most advanced chips would continue to be manufactured in Taiwan and that it is boosting advanced chip packaging capacity to catch up with fast-growing demand driven by generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications like ChatGPT. Deeply rooted in Taiwan, TSMC is expanding production capacity for its most advanced 3-nanometer (nm) chips at its Tainan fab and is building new plants to produce new 2-nanometer chips in Hsinchu and Taichung in 2025. The chipmaker also plans to produce next-generation, cutting-edge 1.4-nanometer chips, which are currently under development, at home, it
FIRST STEP: Business groups in Taiwan welcomed the deal, which does not include tariff reductions at this stage, as they called for the elimination of double taxation Taiwan and the US yesterday signed an initial agreement under the US-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade. The agreement was signed yesterday morning by Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Managing Director Ingrid Larson in Washington, the Office of Trade Negotiations in Taipei said. The ceremony was witnessed by Minister Without Portfolio John Deng (鄧振中) and Deputy US Trade Representative Sarah Bianchi. Taiwan and the US started talks under the initiative in August last year, after Taipei was left out of the Washington-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. “The deal that will be signed tonight is not only very historic,
PASSAGE DISPUTE: A US and Canadian transit was a provocation and an attempt to ‘exercise hegemony of navigation,’ China’s defense ministry told a forum in Singapore The Ministry of National Defense yesterday urged the Chinese Communist Party to avoid provocative behavior after a Chinese navy ship crossed the paths of a US destroyer and Canadian frigate transiting the Taiwan Strait. A Chinese ship on Saturday “executed maneuvers in an unsafe manner in the vicinity of [the USS] Chung-Hoon,” an American destroyer, the US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement. The vessel “overtook Chung-Hoon on their port side and crossed their bow at 150 yards [137m]. Chung-Hoon maintained course and slowed to 10 [knots, 18.5kph] to avoid a collision,” the statement said. It then “crossed Chung-Hoon’s bow a second time
HARD-WON FREEDOM: Beijing’s 1989 crackdown on protesters has not been and should not be forgotten, as China tightens its grip on Hong Kong, Lai said Taiwanese enjoy democracy and freedom and have multiple ways to express their creativity, and hopefully young people in China would also one day have the freedom to sing and express themselves, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday, commemorating the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Yesterday was the 34th anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s bloody crackdown on student-led protests in Beijing in 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident. Tsai posted a photograph taken in March in a subway station in Guizhou, China, where hundreds of young people gathered to sing People With No Ideals Don’t Get Hurt (沒有理想的人不傷心), saying that they
RSS