The Civil Aeronautics Administration yesterday asked Starlux Airlines to issue an explanation after more than 300 Taiwanese passengers were stranded at Narita International Airport in Japan on Saturday night due to flight delays caused by crosswinds and problems with the airline’s aircraft.
The airline said in a statement that Flight JX803 to Taipei was scheduled to take off from the Tokyo-area airport at 4:10pm on Saturday.
Due to an abnormality detected in the Airbus 350’s navigation system, it was obligated to conduct an inspection, which was not completed until 6:30pm, the airline said.
Photo courtesy of a reader
However, crosswinds disrupted flight operations at Narita that day, with many flights lining up for departure, the airline said.
As air traffic controllers continued to delay clearing JX803 for takeoff, potentially causing cabin crew to exceed their maximum working hours, the airline quickly dispatched two pilots to the airport to operate the flight, it said.
However, no flights were allowed to land or depart outside the airport’s operating hours, nor were passengers allowed to pass through customs, claim their luggage or leave the airport, the airline said.
Photo: Tony Yao, Taipei Times
Starlux said it could only arrange for passengers to spend the night at the airport, providing them with sleeping bags, snacks and bottled water.
To facilitate the return of the passengers, 113 of the flight’s 302 passengers changed their tickets to return to Taiwan on EVA Airways flights, Starlux said.
The airline said it dispatched an Airbus A321 to bring back the remaining 189 passengers, who landed at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 3:35pm yesterday.
Starlux Airlines chairman Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒) was among the four pilots dispatched by the airline to fly back the two A350s, the airline said.
“We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience, and passengers on flight JX803 will be entitled to a full refund of their round-trip tickets. We are doing everything we can to help them make other travel arrangements. We will also conduct a comprehensive review of the incident to make improvements,” the airline said in a statement.
The flight disruption also affected the airline’s flights to Los Angeles over the weekend.
Flight JX002 to the Californian city was rescheduled to depart at 11:40pm yesterday, while Flight JX001 was rescheduled to take off at 12:50am today.
The CAA weighed in on the disruptions in a statement yesterday.
“We asked Starlux Airlines to immediately explain how it handled the incident, including how flight operations were arranged and whether pilots took an appropriate course of action. The airline was also asked to review and address consumer protection issues arising from the cancelation and merger of flights,” the CAA said.
Prior to the delay of Flight JX803, Flight JX801 from Narita to Taoyuan, which was scheduled to take off at 1:55pm Saturday, was delayed because the arrival flight from Taoyuan was diverted to Nagoya airport due to cross winds. Even though the flight later completed its trip to Narita, Flight JX801 was canceled and merged with Flight JX803.
Chang apologized to the passengers who spent the night at Narita.
“The airport originally said it could allow flights to take off until 12:30am, but it later began a curfew at 12am. The management was under a lot of pressure as well, because noise caused by flights could trigger protests from residents near the airport,” Chang told reporters upon arrival at the Taoyuan.
Chang said the incidents occurred mainly because of the weather, but he said the airline’s handling of the issues was flawed as well.
Meanwhile, the Taoyuan Flight Attendants’ Union said Chang should apologize to crew members, accusing him of failing to take decisive action in time.
Flight attendants on routes between Taiwan and Japan often fly out and come back on the same day, causing many to work overtime, the union said.
The airline should have made personnel arrangements and communicated with passengers ahead of time, it said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS