Passengers stranded as Taiwan’s China Airline struggles to resume flights after strike
Management and travel industry experts say unprecedented industrial action and meeting flight attendants demands will cost the island’s main carrier millions of dollars
Taiwan’s China Airlines (CAL) cancelled 62 flights on Saturday, including 14 between Hong Kong and Taipei, in the aftermath of the airlines union’s first-ever strike that has stranded more than 35,000 passengers since Friday.
Aside from losses of millions of dollars, the real impact of the unprecedented strike on Taiwan’s aviation industry has yet to be felt, officials and experts said.
Although the strike staged by CAL flight attendants’ union officially ended late on Friday, the airlines still had to cancel 62 flights on Saturday, stranding more than 15,000 passengers.
“As not all the flight attendants have returned to work, we do not have adequate manpower to staff all of our 81 flights originally scheduled for today,” a CAL spokesman said.
On Friday night, the union agreed to call off the strike after the company accepted all of its seven demands to increase allowances and improve working conditions plus other benefits.
However, it stressed some flight attendants who had gone on strike had to take mandatory rest breaks before starting work by midnight on Sunday.
The CAL spokesman said that although company had sought help from their foreign flight attendants , they were still unable to roster sufficient manpower.
Fourteen flights between Hong Kong and Taipei were cancelled, and five were delayed for two to three hours, he noted.
The strike caught the airline off guard when it was launched without notice at midnight on Thursday. CAL was forced to cancel more than 70 flights on Friday, leaving more than 20,000 passengers stranded.
Airlines officials said the cancellations cost CAL NT$200 million (HK$48 million) in just one day, including US$100 worth of refreshment vouchers issued to passengers and extra transfer fees to other airlines that found seats for stranded passengers.
But the worst had yet to come. In addition to compensation claims by local travel agencies, CAL will see its expenditure increases sharply after it adjusts upward the amount of allowances for the flight attendants from next month, officials and experts said.
Chang Yu-hern, who stepped down CAL president because of the strike, said the airlines will have to pay NT$1 billion a year for the increased allowances for the flight attendants.
“I am afraid the 9,000-plus members of the ground staff and pilots might soon follow suit to demand for the same treatment too,” he noted.
Taiwan’s Tourism Bureau said 266 tour groups operated by local travel agencies were either forced to stay in Taiwan or abroad as a result of the airlines’ cancellation of its flights on Friday.
The number of tour groups stranded on Saturday has yet to be counted.
“On Monday, affected travel agencies will start making claims from CAL,” said a spokesman of the Taipei Association of Travel Agents, who estimated members’ losses would top NT$20 million.
Market experts and local news media said the CAL’s status as Taiwan’s leading airline could be eclipsed by EVA Air following the strike, during which a number of stranded passengers said they would never fly with CAL again.
Meanwhile, China Airlines ground staff on Saturday evening threatened their own industrial action. A union spokesman said its 10,000 members were upset than the airline’s management had accepted the flight attendants’ demands but ignored theirs, and that industrial action might be launched as early as Monday.
