Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, the nation’s main international gateway, could record 30 million passenger trips this year, surpassing a previous forecast of 28 million amid a recovery of the global aviation market, the airport’s operator said on Friday.
This year’s estimated passenger volume would be 66.6 percent of the volume recorded in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic, Taoyuan International Airport Corp senior vice president Lee Chun-te (李俊德) said.
The airport recorded 21.88 million passenger trips in the first eight months of this year, which were 8.92 million outbound journeys, 8.83 million inbound journeys, 4.05 million transfers and 64,000 transits, Lee told a news conference.
Photo: Chen Hsin-yu, Taipei Times
That total is about 66.6 percent of the 2019 level, Lee said, adding that market demand during the past two months has seen a significant growth in flights connecting North America, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
However, air travel across the Taiwan Strait remained sluggish compared with other regions during the summer vacation, with passenger volume reaching only 1.43 million (including to Hong Kong and Macau), which is half the amount recorded during the same period in 2019, he said.
Boarding numbers should improve as Taiwan reopened its borders to some Chinese tourists entering from a third location on Sept. 1.
Chinese nationals living abroad, in Hong Kong or Macau can apply to enter Taiwan as tourists, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said last month.
The MAC’s announcement came as travel ties between Taiwan and China have been largely frozen over the past three years, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
China’s government halted independent travel to Taiwan on Aug. 1, 2019, citing the poor state of cross-strait relations. It suspended group travel to Taiwan in 2020.
Meanwhile, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said on May 19 that Chinese travel agencies would be allowed to resume business involving Taiwan group tourists with immediate effect.
At the time, Taiwan declined to lift its restrictions on Chinese tourists entering, saying that Beijing was still restricting outbound travel to Taiwan, and that the decision should have been reached through bilateral negotiations.
In 2019, about 93,000 Chinese nationals living in a third location traveled to Taiwan as tourists, data from the National Immigration Agency showed.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei MRT is to begin accepting mobile payment services in the fall, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said on Saturday. When the company finishes the installation of new payment units at ticketing gates in October, MRT passengers can use credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, the operator said. In addition, the MRT would also provide QR payment codes — which would be compatible with Line Pay, Jkopay, iPass Money, PXPay Plus, EasyWallet, iCash Pay, Taiwan Pay and Taishin Pay — to access the railway system. Currently, passengers can access the Taipei MRT by buying a single-journey token or using EasyCard,
RSS