Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s northern runway was re-opened at 10am yesterday after five months of renovation, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said.
The company said it had originally planned to resurface the runway after the Lunar New Year holiday next year, adding that it had also planned to carry out most of the construction work at night to limit flight schedule disruptions.
As the COVID-19 pandemic caused a steep decline in air traffic, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications suggested the company reschedule the project to an earlier date, it said.
Photo: CNA
Resurfacing of the runway started in May, the company said, adding that it finished the project within 100 days as the work could also be done during the day.
The 3,660m-long runway is equipped with 1,385 runway edge lights, the company said, adding that the construction area was about 282,000m2, which is larger than Taipei’s Daan Forest Park.
Approximately 40,000 tonnes of stone matrix asphalt were used in the construction, it said.
Meanwhile, the company said that it would close the airport’s southern runway for resurfacing work, starting next month.
“We will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the company’s establishment in November. With two renovated runways, we hope that the airport can continue to offer high-quality and safe aviation service for the next 10 years and beyond,” company chief executive Lin Hsiang-sheng (林祥生) said.
Seperately, Japanese budget airline Peach Aviation on Wednesday announced that it would resume flights between Taipei and Japan starting on Oct. 25, adding that it restarted accepting reservations yesterday.
The Tokyo and Osaka flight routes would resume first, the airline said, while flights to other destination in Japan would resume later.
The flights to Osaka’s Kansai International Airport, and Tokyo’s Narita International and Haneda airports would depart three times per week respectively, it said.
The decision came after the Japanese government allowed entry of business travelers from Taiwan as of Tuesday, Peach Aviation said.
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