The government has budgeted NT$300 million (US$10 million) to replace antiquated lavatory facilities in the terminals of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport following reports of toilets backing up in recent years, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said yesterday.
Sewage inundated a bathroom again at Terminal One yesterday morning due to clogged toilets.
TIAC senior vice president Weng Yung-sung (溫永松) said the maintenance workers found face masks, sanitary pads and rubber bands when they tried to repair the damaged facility.
“We hope that passengers can maintain these facilities for themselves, as well as for other people,” he said, adding that the company had begun replacing some of the old toilet facilities in Terminal One and Terminal Two since the end of 2012 and should complete the replacement within three years.
“When Taoyuan Airport began operations in 1979, Terminal One was built to accommodate 5 million passengers a year, but it now serves 12 million a year,” Weng said. “We cannot shut down the entire facility while we carry on with the construction.”
Weng said the construction was very complicated because it required dealing with pipeline designs that were more than 30 years old.
The airport currently has 444 bathrooms in both terminals and 411 cleaning service workers.
To keep the bathrooms clean, Weng said TIAC plans to add another 200 cleaning service workers to the roster, with one in charge of each bathroom in the focus areas.
Weng added that the company would finish installing a passenger feedback system by the end of this year so that it could better monitor the bathrooms’ cleanliness.
Apart from the toilet facilities, the airport company is also seeking to improve the image of the nation’s largest international airport by placing two Taiwanese orchid species — the Phalaenopsis amabilis formosana and the V31 — on display in the two terminals.
The former is a Taiwanese indigenous flower species and drew the attention of Queen Elizabeth II at the Chelsea Flower Show, while the latter is a first-class orchid that is exported overseas, TIAC said.
Each takes more than five years to grow, which is twice the time needed for regular orchids.
“Because it takes longer to grow, the risk of failure is also greater. The plants are in limited supply. They are not available for sale sometimes, even if you have the money,” Weng said.
In other developments, TIAC signed a memorandum of understanding with the Henan Province Airport Group on forming sister links between Taoyuan Airport and Xinzheng International Airport in Zhengzhou, China.
Weng said Zhengzhou is known as a center for Taiwanese investments in computers, communications and consumer electronics manufacturing.
A total of 18 flights fly between Taipei and Zhengzhou each week, bringing about 167,000 passengers to the airport. The airport’s passenger volume hit a record 30.7 million last year.
Though the company regularly replaces old orchid flowers with new ones, Weng said that some passengers may have unknowingly killed them by overwatering the plants.
“Some passengers have poured water they did not finish drinking into the vases,” he said.
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