Despite charges that the premature opening of the Taichung Chingchuankang Airport is an act of political opportunism, officials yesterday remained adamant that the nation's third international airport would be launched today.
After having performed the necessary fire safety inspections on Wednesday, the Civil Aeronautical Administration (CAA) yesterday reported that the airport would today be opened with a ribbon cutting ceremony to be attended by President Chen Shui-bian (
The first flight from the airport, a China Airlines charter flight, will depart at 10:20am for Tokyo. Far Eastern Air Transport will subsequently operate flights to Palau and Thailand. All three flights will depart from Chingchuankang but return to CKS International Airport.
People First Party (PFP) legislators said yesterday that the airport's opening ceremony had been strategically scheduled to take place before the presidential election.
While the airport is set to mark its inauguration with three international chartered flights, the airport will not be able to accommodate scheduled international flights until 2008 at the earliest, according to Billy Chang (張國政), CAA director general. The facility will replace Taichung's Shuinan airport (水湳機場) in servicing domestic flights, beginning tomorrow.
The Chungchuankang airport will however be able to accommodate chartered flights with fewer than 150 passengers and aircraft models smaller than a 756 model.
"Even though the airport will be officially inaugurated tomorrow as an international airport, it is really just a domestic airport. The airport will not be able to service international flights until 2008 and tomorrow's (today's) inauguration is just a way of cashing in on political benefits ahead of the election," said PFP caucus leader Hsieh Chang-chieh (謝章捷).
Hsieh further said that the priority criterion the airport has to meet to become a standard international airport is to avoid interfering with military activities conducted at the Chingchuankang site.
The Chingchuankang facility was formerly a military airbase but was converted to accommodate civilian needs during the construction of the Chingchuankang International Airport.
There is only one runway and it is to be jointly used by civilians and the military. The number of flights that can depart therefore decreased, affecting military exercises as well as civilian needs," Hsieh said.
The Chingchuankang facility's fire safety certificate was not secured until Wednesday, just days ahead of its launch. While the airport had failed Taichung County's fire safety inspections on six counts on Tuesday, corrective measures were taken immediately. The airport was finally handed a fire-safety certificate upon the sixth inspection of the facility.
The CAA reported that a test flight between Taipei City's Sungshan Airport and Chingchuankang Airport had been successfully operated without any problems.
"We can see the fruits of our labor just half a year since construction on the Chingchuankang airport began in September last year. The CAA is very satisfied with the results," said Abraham Huang (黃錫榮), CAA deputy director.
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