The north concourse of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s Terminal 3 is scheduled to begin operations in the middle of next year, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said yesterday.
The Terminal 3 project was launched as the number of air travelers accessing the nation’s largest international airport each year has already exceeded the combined capacity of terminals 1 and 2.
The two existing terminals were designed to be accessed by 37 million air travelers per year. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, about 48.36 million accessed the airport in 2019.
Photo: Tsai Yun-jung, Taipei Times
The airport operator yesterday organized a field trip for reporters to see Terminal 3 construction sites.
TIAC chairman Yang Wei-fuu (楊偉甫) told reporters that 26 million air travelers had accessed the airport as of last month, and the number of the air travelers accessing the airport this year could potentially be 44 million to 45 million, which is about 92 to 94 percent of the 2019 level.
Once Terminal 3 is completed, the airport’s passenger service capacity would expand to 82 million travelers per year from 37 million, Yang said.
The company estimated that more than 50 million passengers are to access the airport per year by 2028.
Based on the company’s plan, Terminal 3 would be mainly used for flight services connecting North America and Southeast Asian nations offered by China Airlines, EVA Airways and Starlux Airlines.
As of last month, the nation had welcomed about 3.936 million transit passengers, up from 3.46 million during the same period last year.
About 77 percent of the airport’s transit passengers this year were those traveling between North America and Southeast Asia, TIAC data showed.
Approximately 40 percent of transit travelers flew from the US or Canada to Southeast Asian nations, data showed.
So far, 42.3 percent of the Terminal 3 project — the terminal, aprons, taxiways, substations, an energy center and an office building — has been completed, about 1 percent behind the construction schedule, the company said.
Although the entire Terminal 3 project would not be completed until 2027, the north concourse is scheduled to begin operations in the middle of next year, which could add eight more aircraft parking spaces to the airport, the company said.
The cost of the project is now estimated to be NT$128.37 billion (US$3.97 billion), up from the previous estimate of NT$95.6 billion, due to inflation and other factors, the company said.
The terminal per se costs about NT$44.53 billion. Its rooftop area is about 100,000m2, which is nearly three times larger than the Taipei Dome. The aggregate floor area is about 580,000m2, the company said.
Yang cited the COVID-19 pandemic and the high turnover rate of migrant workers as the two biggest challenges the project has faced, adding that the problem with the migrant workers was addressed by changing human resources agencies.
TIAC sustained substantial financial losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, turning it from a profitable firm to one in debt.
As of last year, the company had NT$5.4 billion of accumulated financial losses, Yang said.
“We have a very good chance to cover the losses this year due to the return of air travelers. However, we still need to spend about NT$300 billion in the next few years building the third runway and other infrastructure,” he said.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
Taiwan is doing everything it can to prevent a military conflict with China, including building up asymmetric defense capabilities and fortifying public resilience, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a recent interview. “Everything we are doing is to prevent a conflict from happening, whether it is 2027 or before that or beyond that,” Hsiao told American podcaster Shawn Ryan of the Shawn Ryan Show. She was referring to a timeline cited by several US military and intelligence officials, who said Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take military action against Taiwan