The rejection of Republic of China (ROC) passport holders when attempting to buy tickets from budget Chinese carrier Spring Airlines was due to an error in its system, a company representative said yesterday.
Reports said that Spring Airlines rejected ROC passports and asked Taiwanese travelers in China who sought to book tickets to Japan to use passports that are issued or recognized by the People’s Republic of China.
A customer service letter from the carrier allegedly said the policy was to align with Beijing’s “one China” principle to strictly uphold China’s national sovereignty and statutes.
Photo: Taipei Times
However, Spring Airlines Taiwan chief representative Ting Yan-chun (丁彥俊) said the incident resulted from an error in the airline’s system upgrading process that disrupted the personal document data selection function for some air routes.
The “misunderstanding” in the exchange between the passenger and the customer service personnel does not represent the stance of Spring Airlines, he said.
The system error has been resolved, Ting said, adding that Taiwanese travelers can book tickets with Spring Airlines as usual.
That means Taiwanese traveling to a third country via China should use a Taiwan compatriot permit to depart from China and use their ROC passport to enter the third country, he said.
The ROC passport and the Taiwan compatriot permit would still have to be verified, he added.
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