Hengchun Airport
| Hengchun Airport 恆春 機場 |
|
|---|---|
|
|
| Characteristics | |
| ICAO code | RCKW |
| IATA code | HCN |
| Coordinates | |
| Height above MSL | 14 m (46 ft ) |
| Transport links | |
| Distance from the city center | 6 km north of Hengchun Old Town |
| Local transport | by bus |
| Basic data | |
| opening | 2004 |
| operator | Taiwan Civil Aeronautics Administration |
| Passengers | 0 (2016) |
| Air freight | 0 t (2016) |
| Start-and runway | |
| 14/32 | 1700 m × 30 m cement concrete |
The Hengchun Airport ( Chinese 恆春 機場 , Pinyin Héngchūn Jīchǎng , English Hengchun Airport ) is a small regional airport in the district of Renshou (仁壽) north of the old town of Hengchun in the district of Pingtung on the southern tip of the island of Taiwan .
history
During the Japanese rule over Taiwan , a small military airfield was established near Hengchun, but it was hardly used in the following years. Today's airport was opened on January 12, 2004 after a construction period of around three years. The airport was built as part of a government plan to boost tourism. As part of this plan, selected regions that were particularly suitable for tourism were selected with the aim of improving their tourism infrastructure. The number of foreign tourists should be increased to over 2 million a year by 2008 and the total number of tourists to over 5 million a year. Political objectives were explicitly linked to the tourism plan. Taiwan was to be presented to international visitors as a peaceful and democratic society - a kind of “ Shangri-La of Peace and Prosperity” - in order to counteract the country's international isolation .
The Hengchun Peninsula at the southern tip of Taiwan was also one of the tourism regions to be developed. Due to the tropical, mild climate and the impressive nature with the Kenting National Park and several beaches, it was hoped that stressed city dwellers from the metropolises of the north ( Taipei , Taipei County or New Taipei , etc.) and foreign holidaymakers who came across the international Taiwan Taoyuan Airport arrived to attract vacationers.
The airport construction cost NT $ 539 million (then about 15.2 million euros). The plans envisaged that 170,000 passengers a year should arrive there in 2016.
Recent developments
| year | Passengers |
|---|---|
| 2004 | 23,000 |
| 2006 | 11,000 |
| 2011 | 2,448 |
| 2014 | 768 |
| 2015 | 0 |
| 2016 | 0 |
The airport started with regular scheduled flights to and from Taipei. The expectations that were placed in the airport have not yet been fulfilled. There were two main reasons for this. For one thing, the opening of the Taipei- Kaohsiung high-speed rail line in 2007 cut travel times between those two cities to just an hour and a half. However, the connection between Kaohsiung and Hengchun remained a bottleneck, requiring an additional 2 to 2.5 hours by taxi or 3 hours by bus. On the other hand, it was found that the airport had to remain closed more frequently from October to April due to unexpectedly strong downward winds , especially due to the northeast monsoon , which made the connection unreliable. Hengchun also competes as a tourist destination with the Penghu Islands , which can be reached from any airport in Taiwan with about an hour's flight time. Okinawa , Japan, is also just a 100-minute flight away as a tourist destination.
Since 2007, Uni Air has been the only airline operating the Hengchun ↔ Taipei route . The De Havilland DHC-8s used initially were later replaced by ATR-72s . The number of passengers fell continuously from year to year. Since September 2014 there has been no flight operation at all. In 2016, the fallow airport ran a deficit of NT $ 60 million (€ 1.7 million). In some press organs, the airport was ridiculed as the "mosquito airport" (蚊子 機場), as these are the only objects in flight that landed and took off here. After the airport had not seen a single flight movement for more than 20 months, the Taiwan Aviation Authority publicly considered handing over the airport to the military in May 2016. In May 2017, the Taiwanese government basically approved a plan after the airport is to be converted into an international charter airport on a trial basis for two years .
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Challenge 2008: National Development Plan Doubling Tourist Arrivals Plan Progress Report. (pdf) Ministry of Transport and Communications, February 2008, accessed on November 18, 2017 .
- ↑ a b Airport Introduction. (No longer available online.) Hengchun Airport, archived from the original on March 5, 2016 ; accessed on November 18, 2017 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Euro - Taiwanese dollar. finanzen.net, accessed on November 18, 2017 (currency converter for historical exchange rates).
- ↑ a b c Shelley Shan: Hengchun Airport given two-year reprieve. Taipei Times, December 26, 2016, accessed November 18, 2017 .
- ↑ a b Hengchun Airport to face possible closure next year. Taipei Times, October 4, 2015, accessed November 18, 2017 .
- ↑ a b Matthew Fulco: Hengchun Airport Longs to Get Flights Off the Ground. Taiwan Business Topics, May 17, 2017, accessed November 18, 2017 .
- ↑ 蚊子 機場 等 嘸 人！ 恆春 機場 3 年僅 1 飛機 起降 (The mosquito airport is waiting for passengers! Only 1 plane landed at Hengchun airport in 3 years!). China Times, accessed November 18, 2017 (Chinese).
- ↑ Hengchun Airport could be turned over to military use. Taiwan News, May 30, 2016, accessed November 18, 2017 .
- ↑ Hengchun Airport to start test runs for international charters. Executive Yuan News Agency, May 3, 2017, accessed November 18, 2017 (Chinese).
