China’s “zero COVID-19” policy would hamper the recovery of the civil aviation industry in the Asia-Pacific region, International Air Transport Association (IATA) director-general Willie Walsh told the Changi Aviation Summit yesterday.
“As long as the Chinese government continues to maintain their ‘zero COVID’ approach, it is hard to see the country’s borders reopening. This will hold back the region’s full recovery,” Walsh said in his keynote speech.
While Japan is also key to the industry’s recovery in the region and has taken steps to allow it, it lacks a clear plan to reopen to all visitors or tourists, he said.
Photo: AFP
Japan should “lift quarantine for all vaccinated travelers,” “remove both the on-arrival airport testing and daily arrival cap” and “take bolder steps towards reopening of the country’s borders,” he said.
Walsh identified the importance of the two countries while urging Asia-Pacific countries to further ease border measures to accelerate the region’s recovery from COVID-19.
“Asia-Pacific is playing catch-up on restarting travel after COVID-19, but there is growing momentum with governments lifting many travel restrictions. The demand for people to travel is clear. As soon as measures are relaxed, there is an immediate positive reaction from travelers,” Walsh said. “So it is critical that all stakeholders, including governments, are well-prepared for the restart. We cannot delay. Jobs are at stake and people want to travel.”
Photo courtesy of Taoyuan International Airport Corp via CNA
The Asia-Pacific region’s international passenger demand for March reached 17 percent of pre-pandemic levels, after having hovered at less than 10 percent for most of the past two years, he said, but government restrictions have prevented demand from recovering to 60 percent of pre-pandemic levels as seen in other countries.
Governments in the region should continue easing measures and bring normalcy to air travel by removing all restrictions for vaccinated travelers and lifting the mask mandate for air travel when it is no longer required in other indoor environments and public transport, he said.
Quarantine and COVID-19 testing for unvaccinated travelers should be removed in countries where there are high levels of population immunity, which is the case in most parts of Asia, Walsh said.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center, earlier this month reaffirmed that the nation’s borders could gradually reopen to international travelers in July, provided the borders are first opened to countries whose COVID-19 situations are similar to Taiwan’s and domestic medical facilities have the capacity to cope with an increase in COVID-19 cases.
In other news, Taoyuan International Airport Corp senior vice president Jerry Dan (但昭璧) yesterday told the 33th Airports Council International Asia Pacific Regional Board meeting in Singapore that the council can dispel travelers’ concerns, and boost the confidence of air passengers and carriers by making consistent suggestions to governments regarding regulatory and quarantine measures.
Overall average air passenger volume has reached only 30 percent of pre-pandemic levels, council director-general Stefano Baronci said.
Airports around the world still face many challenges, including COVID-19 passport checks, a shortage of airport workers and on-arrival COVID-19 testing, he added.
Liya Chu (朱如茵), whose parents are New York-based Taiwanese restaurateurs, has been crowned the champion of US television cooking competition MasterChef Junior, after wowing the judges, including celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, with a feast of fusion cuisine. In the finale of the show’s eighth season, broadcast on Thursday, Chu walked away with US$100,000 after serving a spread of spiced duck breast with scallion pancakes and miso eggplant, followed by coconut pandan panna cotta with a passion fruit coulis and sesame tuille. Chu, who was 10 years old at the time of filming three years ago, faced off against then-11-year-old Grayson Price from
A university student has gained the spotlight for an interactive map he designed detailing all of China’s military bases and installations throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Soochow University music student Joseph Wen (溫約瑟), who calls himself an amateur military enthusiast, said he created the map to “help people better understand the cross-strait situation.” Wen originally posted the map online on June 14 last year, but it gained greater attention after he mentioned it during an appearance on a China Television talk show. On the show, Wen said he had gathered information on the locations from publicly available Web sites, as
RISK FACTORS: ‘We hope people can cooperate and endure it ... it is possibly the very important last mile,’ Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung said Taiwan’s COVID-19 restrictions and mask regulations are to remain the same next month, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. The center reported 42,112 new local COVID-19 cases and 85 deaths, saying that the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has dropped to a new low this month. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, said that the center is keeping COVID-19 restrictions and mask regulations the same due to the local virus situation, and an increase in the number of imported cases of the new Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 of SARS-CoV-2, among other risk factors. Easing
GLOBAL STRATEGY: Indo-Pacific alliances need reinforcement to prevent Chinese occupation of Taiwan, which would threaten Japan, Hawaii and Australia, Pompeo said The US should officially recognize Taiwan as a free, independent nation and establish official diplomatic ties, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo told an event at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Friday. Every US president since Harry Truman has considered Taiwan’s existence to be of utmost importance to US national security, Pompeo said. Taiwan is a principal US partner in technology and economic matters, and if China were to capture Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain, it would severely hamper the US economy, Pompeo said. Should China occupy Taiwan, it would severely weaken US influence in the Indo-Pacific region and its surrounding areas,
RSS