People taking military aircraft or ships to return home during the Lunar New Year holiday this year may be asked to pay for the trip, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) said yesterday.
Last year, the ministry proposed plans to facilitate the transport of homebound passengers during the Lunar New Year break. One plan was to use military ships departing from Keelung and Kaohsiung to transport people to Matsu or Kinmen.
Another contingency plan would come into effect if inclement weather conditions prevented civilian flights from landing safely at the airports of outlying islands. In that case, the ministry would ask the Ministry of National Defense (MND) to dispatch military aircraft or naval vessels to ferry passengers.
The MOTC said that last year, passengers could board these military craft for free and they were only required to purchase personal insurance.
However, “the Control Yuan questioned the legitimacy of the offer because the passengers were essentially using government resources,” said Cheng Chorng-been (鄭崇賓), a senior executive officer at the Department of Navigation and Aviation.
“The MND then told us that we have to charge [passsengers],” Cheng said.
He said the MOTC proposes that each passenger boarding a military aircraft be charged NT$1,000 and NT$600 for naval vessels, with travel insurance included in the costs.
The proposal still has to be approved by the Executive Yuan.
Cheng said the fares would be collected by harbor bureau officials, who would give the money to the MND. The MND would then turn the money over to the national treasury.
The proposal still has to be approved by the Executive Yuan before it can be executed.
According to Cheng, the MND deployed a Lockheed C-130 model aircraft to bring passengers to Kinmen during the Lunar New Year holiday last year after the airport there was shut down because of heavy fog.
No warships were dispatched to transport passengers last year.
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