The nation’s airlines would have sustained greater financial losses if it were not for the government relief package and booming air cargo service market, Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday.
Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) statistics showed that all of the airlines reported financial losses during the first half of this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
China Airlines (CAL) lost NT$1.313 billion (US$44.69 million) between January and June, while EVA Airways’ (EVA) losses for that period topped NT$1.834 billion.
Photo: Cheng Wei-chi, Taipei Times
CAL’s subsidiary Mandarin Airlines and EVA’s Uni Air sustained NT$340 million and NT$18.40 million in losses respectively.
Starlux Airlines, which began operations in January, also reported a financial loss of NT$1.312 billion.
Asked to comment on the airlines’ financial predicament and if the government plans to provide them with more funds, Lin said that transportation and tourism service providers have borne the brunt of the repercussions brought by the pandemic.
“We quickly assessed the situation and helped airlines secure a loan of NT$50 billion to help them weather this difficult time,” he said.
“The financial losses sustained by Taiwanese flight carriers have been relatively smaller compared with those of international carriers in other countries,” he added.
Revenues from an increase in their air cargo services helped compensate local airlines for their losses, he said.
When the pandemic began to spread from China to other countries, Lin said that airline executives had told him that they expected the financial losses this year could top NT$10 billion.
“The losses were much smaller than they had expected. This showed that the relief package did help the airlines, and they made timely and proper adjustments to reduce losses, such as focusing on air cargo businesses,” he said.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
RSS