Taoyuan airport on final approach to set new transit passenger record

Taipei, Dec. 18 (CNA) More than 3.1 million people transited through Taoyuan International Airport in the first 11 months of 2024, well on the way to breaking the previous record set last year, according to airport company figures released Wednesday.

The transit passenger figure through November was just 2 percent lower than the number for all of 2023, and continued to run about 20 percent higher than in 2019, the peak year for traffic at the Taoyuan airport, Taiwan's main international gateway.

The numbers were made public in a meeting of the Legislative Yuan's Transportation Committee on Wednesday attended by Transportation Minister Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) and Tourism Administration Director-General Chou Yung-hui (周永暉).

Yang Wei-fuu (楊偉甫), chairman of the state-owned Taoyuan International Airport Corporation, was also invited to attend the committee hearing on improving tourism numbers.

The transit passenger numbers reflect to some extent the success of Taiwanese airlines' marketing strategies, which have focused on serving transit passengers, especially between Southeast Asia and North America through Taiwan.

The growth in transit passengers has cushioned the blow to airlines and the Taoyuan airport of the slow recovery in visits by foreign nationals to Taiwan, which were still down 36 percent from the 2019 level in the first 10 months of 2024.

Passenger volume at Taoyuan International Airport is expected to rebound to 2017 levels this year and come within about 10 percent of the record volume set in 2019.

Airport traffic statistics include both passenger arrivals and departures, meaning that most transit passengers are counted twice in the official numbers.

In the first 11 months of 2024, there were 3.05 million transit passenger arrivals, 3.06 million transit passenger departures, and 150,000 passengers (counted only once) in a separate category for people on the same numbered flight in and out of the airport, the airport company said.

That translated to about 15 percent of total passenger traffic at the airport, up from 11 percent in 2019.