Airline News
Landmark development in cross-strait aviation
August 31st 2015
Taiwan and the Mainland last week signed a landmark civil aviation safety pact that will allow certified technicians on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to perform scheduled aircraft maintenance and inspections and use repaired or replacement parts manufactured on either side. Read More » Currently, airlines on both sides of the Strait must bring their own replacement parts and maintenance crew to service their aircraft.
As for a planned joint statement on allowing Chinese passengers to transfer in Taiwan en route to and from foreign destinations, Straits Exchange Foundation chairman, Lin Join-sane, said he hoped negotiations would continue and that there would be a positive result by the end of this year. Restrictions ban Taiwanese carriers from carrying Mainland traffic beyond Taiwan, but former China Airlines (CAL) chairman, Huang-Hsiang Sun, told Orient Aviation he was confident a major breakthrough on this issue was on the horizon. Sun said he observed progress in the last couple of months that was very encouraging. “The official dialogue has begun. I am quite optimistic. I think both sides will find a solution and make the transfer point in Taiwan feasible. CAL is ready,” Sun said.
Statistics published by the U.S. Department of Commerce in 2014 reported that of the 1.8 million Mainland Chinese tourists who visit the U.S. annually, 60% transited through third-party airports such as Hong Kong, Seoul and Tokyo. If the restriction was lifted, and considering the already significant cross-strait networks in place, Taiwanese carriers could challenge the growing Mainland – or U.S. – trans-Pacific “domination”, in addition to undermining Japan and South Korea as the traditional North Asian transfer hubs.
In other Taiwanese aviation news, the island’s second largest carrier, EVA Air, has signed up for Amadeus’ Altea Revenue Management Suite. When completely migrated to the carrier, by the first quarter of 2016, EVA will be the first Asian carrier to use the system.
CAL’s and EVA’s home base, Taipei’s Taoyuan International Airport, grew 11.1% in 2014, to handle 35.8 million passengers, making it the 16th largest airport in the Asia-Pacific, bigger than Narita, Mumbai and Manila. Taoyuan was the region’s fastest growing major airport outside Mainland China last year, despite construction work that took a runway out of service. Full operations are scheduled to resume in early 2016, easing existing congestion and opening up more slots for growth, CAPA has reported.
