The number of passengers taking domestic flights between locations on the western side of the nation declined further this year, dropping to 2,255 in September, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) said yesterday.
Currently, domestic airlines still ply routes between Taipei and Kaohsiung, Taipei and Pingtung, and between Taipei and Hengchun (恆春).
The MOTC reported that airline passengers in the west of the nation have dropped in number drastically from approximately 500,000 per month in 2004 to 2,255 in September this year, adding that the launch of the High Speed Rail service in 2006 was the main reason for the decrease.
Despite the sharp decline in the number of flight passengers, Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) Director-General Lee Lung-wen (李龍文) said the administration would not suspend any west coast flights for the moment.
“They [flights] will continue for at least another six months, before the government completes the cross-strait negotiations on regular charter flights,” he said.
Meanwhile, MOTC statistics showed that flight passengers to Hualien and to Taitung had also dropped by 22.5 percent between January and September compared to the same period last year. On the other hand, the number of passengers to the nation’s outlying islands, including to Kinmen, Penghu, Matsu, Green Island (綠島) and Lanyu (蘭嶼), have risen by 5.7 percent. The accumulated number of passengers on Taipei-Kinmen flights topped 708,000 in the past nine months, which accounted for 18.3 percent of domestic flight volume.
Compared to the same period last year, the total number of domestic airline passengers in the past nine months has dropped by 22.3 percent to 3.88 million people.
The nation’s airlines also saw a 5.8 percent decrease in passengers on international flights to 13.26 million, which was attributed to the global economic downturn and the hike in oil prices.
The ministry’s statistics categorized cross-strait charter flights as international flights, and they accounted for 2.5 percent of the nation’s total international flights.
Since July 4, the nation has dispatched 234 cross-strait charter flights, with the average occupancy rate reaching 85.7 percent per flight.
While the number of passengers on both domestic and international flights have decreased significantly, Lee said “the spring” for the airline industry is just around the corner.
“The situation has hit the bottom. It will not get worse,” he said.
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