International air passenger volume could return to the 2019 level by 2025 due to a stable rebound in the aviation industry, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said on Tuesday.
The aviation authority said it projected “optimistic” and “conservative” scenarios, as countries around the world have reopened their borders as the COVID-19 pandemic has started to slow down.
However, the pace of recovery for cross-strait flights would be the lynchpin, it said.
Photo: CNA
“We estimate that international air passenger volume could reach between 23.97 million and 36 million this year, which would be about 40 to 60 percent of the 2019 level,” CAA Air Transport Division Director Hsieh Jin-mei (謝金玫) told a news conference in Taipei.
“With a stable rebound in the aviation industry, the optimistic scenario would be that international and cross-strait air passengers fully return to the 2019 level by 2025,” she said.
Taiwan’s international air passenger volume plunged from 59.02 million in 2019 to 1.02 million in 2021, CAA data showed.
Between 2020 and last year, the government provided the industry NT$41.7 billion (US$1.36 billion) as relief funds for airlines to maintain their operation and avoid mass layoffs, the agency said.
Government relief funds helped preserve Taiwanese airlines and enabled them to quickly rebound as soon as the pandemic started to ease, it said.
From January to last month, 7.43 million international air passengers arrived in Taiwan, 51 percent of the arrivals for the same period in 2019, CAA data showed.
The agency said that international passenger travel could recover to 65 to 80 percent of the 2019 level.
The number of international flights from Taiwan is expected to increase from 1,941 per week last month to 2,168 per week in October, it said.
As of last month, flights to Japan had risen to 79 percent of the 2019 level to reach 571 per week, while flights to South Korea recovered 64 percent to reach 175 per week, it said.
Flights to Southeast Asian countries reached 669 per week after Hanoi-based Bamboo Airways and StarLux Airlines launched new flights, with the recovery rate reaching 97 percent, the CAA said.
Flights to Europe recovered 106 percent to reach 57 per week, while flights to North America resumed 96 percent to reach 133 per week, it said.
Flights to the Middle East recovered 108 percent to reach 14 per week, while those to Australia and New Zealand resumed 68 percent to reach 23 per week.
Taiwanese airlines now offer flights to China’s Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Nanjing, in addition to Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen and Chengdu, the agency said.
However, there are only 251 cross-strait flights per week, about 47 percent of the number in 2019.
“We would ask airlines to quickly address the labor shortage and increase flight punctuality,” Hsieh said. “In the long run, we would work on upgrading airport facilities around the nation.”
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