Taiwan's Minister of Transportation and Communications Hochen Tan yesterday confirmed that the ministry has rescinded TransAsia Airways Corp's rights to operate domestic and international flights, with the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) scheduled to complete the reassignment of those flights by the end of this month.

CAA planning division director Chen Jau-yuh said that the agency mainly needs to reassign the right to operate cross-strait flights, with TransAsia offering 61 such flights before it ceased operations.

Chen said that these flights involve 24 routes and 15 airports - including Taipei International Airport (Songshan), Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taichung Airport, Kaohsiung Airport, Hualien Airport and their counterparts in mainland China.

The agency will also have to reassign TransAsia's right to operate flights to Palau, with the carrier formerly offering two flights per week, Chen said.

The agency is scheduled to hold an information session on the reassignment of aviation rights next week, with commercial airlines expected to present their requests to take over those routes.

"If their requests do not exceed the cap on cross-strait flights, we will allocate the routes based on their demands. However, we would have to host an official meeting to determine how the aviation rights should be reassigned if their requests exceed the cap on cross-strait flights. We will then make our recommendations to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, which has to approve them," Chen said.

She said she expects the whole process to be completed by the end of this month.

After the carriers are given new flight rights, they can initiate the process of launching new routes, including applying for certificates for operation, flight schedules and ticket prices.

Among the cross-strait flights previously operated by TransAsia, the flights to Shanghai are expected to be the most sought after, including those between Taoyuan and Shanghai Pudong Airport, Songshan and Pudong Airport, Taichung and Pudong Airport, as well as Songshan to Shanghai Hongqiao Airport.

The Songshan and Hangzhou and Songshan and Fuzhou routes are also popular, with flights boasting high occupancy rates.

Asked if China Airlines Ltd would be given preferential treatment for promptly complying with the government's order to temporarily take over the routes operated by TransAsia to ensure that flights to the island's remote areas could continue, Chen said the agency would accept applications from all interested carriers.

The degree of compliance with the government's policy that an airline demonstrates is only one of the criteria that the agency would consider when allocating aviation rights, Chen said, adding that the criterion accounts for only 15 percent of their performance evaluation.

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