A group of 122 Taiwanese, including two infants, were last night to arrive in Taiwan on a charter flight from Indonesia as the Southeast Asian country grapples with a serious COVID-19 outbreak.
The plane, chartered from Garuda Indonesia, was scheduled to touch down at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 10:55pm.
The passengers were to stay at government-designated quarantine facilities, said Brian Ko (柯孝宗), head of consular services at the Taipei Economic and Trade Office in Jakarta.
The office has provided the passenger list to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Immigration Agency, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare to help arrange quarantine facilities.
Sixteen crew members were to remain onboard for a return flight at 11:55pm, Ko said, adding that 46 passengers, including two infants, were to board that flight.
Taiwan in June designated Indonesia as a high-risk country and has since applied tighter quarantine rules for arrivals who have visited or transited through the country in the previous 14 days.
China Airlines and EVA Airways temporarily suspended flights to Indonesia at the end of June due to the country’s worsening COVID-19 outbreak, canceling all flights bound for Indonesia until the end of this month.
Neighboring countries, such as Singapore, also prohibit travelers from Indonesia from transiting through their airports, which has made it more difficult for Taiwanese in Indonesia to return home.
The Indonesia Taiwan Chambers of Commerce and the Taiwan-Indonesia Tourism Development Exchange Association early last month helped strike a deal with Indonesia’s Batik Air to evacuate Taiwanese on a charter flight, but the airline backed out of the agreement on July 20.
Garuda Indonesia, which was not authorized to operate flights to Taiwan after halting them in 2014 due to low passenger volume, agreed to transport the passengers, and the Civil Aeronautics Administration on July 22 approved its application for a charter flight, association head Alex Chang (張志嘉) said.
A service center set up in Indonesia by the chamber said it would determine the demand for a second flight.
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