Far Eastern Air flight attendants' protest disrupts flights

Taipei, May 6 (CNA) Flight attendants of Taiwanese airline Far Eastern Air Transport (遠東航空) jointly "took a day off" on Saturday, in a protest against the carrier's laying off of 17 employees and the delayed payment of flight attendants' subsidies, disrupting the company's flights to China and Taiwan's outlying island of Penghu.

As of Saturday noon, 21 of 46 flight attendants who should be at work were absent, leading to the cancellation of two flights between northern Taiwan's Taoyuan City and Harbin City in northeastern China, and two other flights between southern Taiwan's Kaohsiung and its outlying island Penghu scheduled for that day, the airline said.

The flight attendants "took the day off" to protest against Far Eastern Air's laying off of 17 flight attendants recently, delayed payments of subsidies to its flight attendants and unilaterally making adjustments to the employees' salary scale.

The airline said it will continue to communicate with the flight attendants.

Far Eastern Air, a medium-sized carrier in Taiwan, operates domestic flights and regional flights to Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Macau and several cities in China.

(By Chen Wei-ting and Elaine Hou)ENDITEM/cs