All Nippon Airways (ANA) yesterday resumed two weekly flights between Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) and Tokyo International Airport (Haneda airport) after service had been suspended for almost three months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Japanese airline said it has restarted the direct flight service, which had been suspended since May 9, because many Japanese businesspeople needed to travel to Taiwan and Japanese expatriates in Taiwan needed flights home.
The flights would be offered on Mondays and Fridays using Boeing 787-8 aircraft, it said.
Photo: CNA
About 50 passengers boarded the morning flight that departed from Haneda airport and underwent quarantine procedures required by Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center upon their arrival at Songshan airport, the airline said.
Airline staff cleaned and sterilized the aircraft before about 100 passengers boarded for its return flight, it said.
Dubai-based Emirates Airline on June 17 resumed service between Taipei and Dubai, and people who need to travel through Dubai to Bahrain and 14 other cities in its network can book their tickets on its Web site, provided they meet quarantine requirements.
Singapore-based budget airline Scoot Tigerair on Wednesday last week announced that it would resume flights between Taipei and Seoul on Aug. 16, and that flights would be added on the route to Singapore.
The weekly service would leave Taipei on Friday and Sunday afternoons, with return flights leaving Seoul on Saturday and Monday mornings, the carrier said.
In other news, ridership on Taipei’s MRT metropolitan railway system in the first half of this year declined by 62.69 million from a year earlier due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said yesterday.
Ridership totaled 322.63 million over the period, compared with 385.32 million in the same period last year, it said.
On average, about 2 million people rode the MRT daily last year, and more than 60 million people rode the system monthly, it said, adding that 789.54 million people rode it over the course of the year.
Ridership this year noticeably began to decline following the outbreak in February, dropping to an average 1.83 million daily rides that month, 1.72 million daily rides in March and 1.51 million in April, it said.
Current ridership levels are the lowest they have been since July 2011, it added.
Ridership began to rise in May, but is still lower than last year’s levels, it said, adding that daily rides last month climbed to 1.93 million.
In response to new imported COVID-19 cases, MRT staff have stepped up disinfection of station facilities, which includes disinfecting ticket machines, ATMs and restrooms every four hours, it said.
Thermal imaging cameras have also been installed in the busiest stations, it added.
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