Transportation authorities yesterday said that they have taken precautions in case pilots from the nation’s two major airlines strike, while the Taoyuan Union of Pilots said it would rehearse the walkout amid growing pressure from carriers.
Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said the Ministry of Transportation and Communications has been in talks with the Ministry of Labor and the Taoyuan City Government, where the union is based, to solve the problem swiftly.
While he declined to disclose details, Wang said that authorities have been working to meet with pilots from China Airlines (CAL) and EVA Air to avoid a strike.
Meanwhile, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC), which oversees the nation’s main gateway, said that it has held meetings with CAL, EVA Air and airport service companies to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
The company has a response plan, spokesman Lee Jian-kuo (李建國) said, adding that should there be a strike, the airlines must make sure that their aircraft do not occupy ramps and gangways.
As many as 70 percent of the members of the union have cast their ballots on whether to stage a walkout as part of a vote that is to end tomorrow, following unsuccessful negotiations over working conditions at CAL and EVA Air.
The union represents about 800, or 70 percent, of CAL’s pilots and 500, or 50 percent, of EVA Air’s pilots.
The union earlier this week said that it was considering a strike during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
However, it has received a provisional injunction, which was applied for by CAL, to prevent pilots from going on strike before a hearing can take place, the union said.
CAL confirmed that it has appealed to the court that the strike is illegitimate.
The lawsuit, regardless of its result, could delay the union’s strike plans, union spokesman Chen Po-chien (陳柏謙) said.
In response, the union said it would hold a strike rehearsal after the vote to familiarize pilots with strike procedures.
The union would campaign intensively to help pilots legally fight for their rights, it added.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS