The number of people transiting through Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is expected to increase in the second half of this year if travelers between North America and Southeast Asia are exempted from carry-on baggage screening, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said yesterday.
The nation’s largest international airport was in 2019 accessed by 48.68 million people, 2.96 million of whom were transferring flights, Ministry of Transportation and Communications data showed.
Eighty percent of those transit passengers were traveling between North America and Southeast Asia, and about 750,000 were on flights that departed from the US, the data showed.
Photo courtesy of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport via CNA
As of June, 1.45 million people had transited through the airport so far this year, surpassing the number recorded during the same period in 2019. Most of the transit passengers were traveling between North America and Southeast Asia.
The airport has since 2019 implemented “one-stop” security measures exempting transit passengers arriving from the US from checked luggage security checks, the CAA said, adding that the policy also applies to transit passengers from flights departing from Canada and New Zealand.
CAA Director-General Lin Kuo-hsien (林國顯) and Taoyuan International Airport Corp chairman Yang Wei-fuu (楊偉甫) yesterday morning left for the US to discuss expanding the one-stop security policy to include carry-on baggage with the US Transportation Security Administration.
“We will see how the security screening is conducted at the San Francisco and Los Angeles international airports during this trip. We can implement the one-stop security policy on carry-on baggage once the Aviation Police Bureau completes the verification procedures,” Lin told the Central News Agency in an interview.
“All parties are looking forward to the policy, as transit passengers would have more time to rest and shop,” Lin added.
The new security policy would cover transit passengers arriving on US flights, giving each person an extra 30 to 60 minutes during their transit, he said.
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