Nearly 1.6 million passengers have been served over the past year since direct cross-strait charter flights were launched on July 4 last year, a report by the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said.
Air carriers on both sides of the Strait operated a total of 4,008 flights, carrying 1,597,000 passengers as of June 30 this year, CAA statistics showed.
These carriers also operated 177 cargo flights across the Strait, transporting 18,717 tonnes of cargo since Dec. 15 last year, when direct cross-strait cargo flights were opened, the data showed.
A total of 859 direct cross-strait weekend charter flights were operated between July 4 and Dec. 14 last year, serving 336,000 passengers and representing an average passenger load factor of 85.3 percent, the data showed.
From Dec. 15 to June 30 this year, a total of 3,149 direct cross-strait daily charter flights were operated, transporting 1.26 million passengers, the CAA said.
This represented a passenger load factor of 81.5 percent for Taiwanese airline companies and 75.3 percent for Chinese carriers, the CAA said.
CAA officials said that at present, the number of daily direct cross-strait charter flights stands at 108 per week, up from 36 per week in July last year, when only weekend flights were allowed.
The officials said regularly scheduled cross-strait flights are expected to be formally launched sometime this month, with 270 flights available each week.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
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