Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) yesterday attended a Cabinet meeting to discuss his proposal to relocate Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport), a week after his re-election campaign unveiled the proposition.
Chiang and the Executive Yuan offered differing accounts of the meeting, with the former emphasizing progress in exploring the proposal and the latter expressing skepticism about the “significant reversal” in the city’s urban development policy.
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s first and second terminals have a combined capacity of 48 million people a year, which is projected to expand to 70 million with the opening of the third terminal, Chiang said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
This increase is more than enough to replace Songshan airport, whose capacity is 5.6 million people, he said.
Asked why he did not make this policy request earlier during his term as mayor, Chiang said that he had filed a recommendation for the removal of Songshan airport to the central government in August last year.
Chiang declined to respond to questions about replacing the airport’s role as a logistics hub for Taiwan’s outlying islands and medical patients requiring air transport.
Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said that this was the first time Chiang discussed relocating the airport with the central government.
Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) strongly hopes that Chiang would explain the significant developmental reversal and provide documentation on the city’s internal discussions to help assist with the project, she added.
Songshan airport is used for accessing the outlying islands, transporting medical patients by air, and international flights, a reserve for Taoyuan airport and doubles as a military airbase for the capital’s defense, she said.
Without Songshan airport, there would be a critical capability gap that is immensely challenging to fill, especially due to its role as the sole airport capable of accommodating E and F type aircraft, she said.
Taoyuan airport’s third terminal is not expected to be completed before 2030, or reach its full operational potential in less than 10 years, she said.
The Executive Yuan would defer to Chiang’s plans for replacing Songshan airport’s vital capabilities, she said.
Separately, Civil Aviation Administration Deputy Director Yang Kuo-feng (楊國?) said that Chiang had previously agreed to the government’s Songshan airport 2040 plan.
Under the plan, approved by the Cabinet in 2023, the airport would become Taiwan’s primary hub for business jets, focusing on flights connecting to regional capitals and cross-strait business hubs, while still providing reliable transport to outlying islands.
Two executives of drone supplier Jiin Ming Industry Co (錦明實業) have been detained and held incommunicado over the company's alleged use of prohibited China-made chips and camera lenses in drones supplied under recent military contracts, the Taoyuan District Prosecutors' Office said today. In a statement, prosecutors said they raided the offices of Jiin Ming — headquartered in Taoyuan — as well as those of its subsidiaries and its suppliers on Thursday last week. The raids followed a report that the company had breached its procurement contracts by putting the prohibited components into drones delivered to the military. During the raids, prosecutors summoned
The government would continue monitoring online rumors that a pneumonic plague outbreak has spread from Russia into China and could enhance existing quarantine measures, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said today. During a legislative meeting, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said rumors were circulating that the disease had spread across several Chinese provinces. He asked Cho whether the government was prepared to prevent the disease from spreading to Taiwan, given the frequent exchanges between Taiwan and China, and how concerned the government was about the alleged outbreak. The Ministry of Health and Welfare implemented border quarantine measures after briefing the Executive Yuan
South Korean boy band BigBang drew 120,000 fans to three concerts at Taipei Dome from Friday through yesterday, as the band thanked them for their support over their 20-year career. The Taipei Dome concerts were part of BigBang's "2026-2027 World Tour XX: Cosmos." Friday's concert was BigBang's first performance in Taiwan in 11 years. During the encore, group leader G-Dragon (GD) shouted "I love you" in Chinese and said he was especially happy to perform in Taiwan with bandmates Taeyang and Daesung. "Taipei, I'm very grateful to you all," GD said in Chinese, asking fans to wait for the band's return. Daesung thanked
Pulled aside onto the balcony of an empty hotel room by Chinese state security officers, a Taiwanese tourist on a trip to Tibet described facing an unnerving barrage of questions about his military background and political loyalties. The man surnamed Lin (林) reported his experience in a viral post on Threads before accepting an interview with the Central News Agency (CNA) yesterday. Lin, who works as a nurse, told CNA that he knew some Taiwanese had run afoul of Chinese law enforcement, but he thought he would be safe, as he did not post much about his personal political views online. It came
RSS