Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) Director-General Lee Long-wen (李龍文) said yesterday that his agency does not have the authority to tell airlines what routes they should fly.
His comment came in response to Uni Air’s decision to temporarily cancel charter services on the Kaohsiung-Guangzhou route — less than two months after cross-strait weekend charter flights were launched under an accord between the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS).
The Taipei-based carrier said it was halting service on the route because of low passenger numbers.
Uni Air said the average passenger load on the Kaohsiung to Guangzhou flights was about 70 percent, but on return flights the load was just 40 percent to 50 percent.
Considering the operating costs, the airline said it had decided to halt the charter service, but could relaunch the service if there was sufficient demand in the future.
Lee said the CAA could not force airlines to operate specific routes, pointing out that the decision was dependent on market forces.
“Wherever there are passengers, airlines will offer flights,” he said.
Only one flight per week has been offered on the Kaohsiung-Guangzhou route, except for the second week in July when China Airlines offered an additional flight.
Eight domestic airports were designated to handle the cross-strait charter flights, but no airline applied to fly from Kaohsiung International Airport until shortly before the cross-strait charters were launched, when Uni Air stepped in to offer flights from Kaoshiung to Guangzhou.
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