sky

It was 12 am and hundreds of China Airlines employees were camped out in front of the company’s headquarters in downtown Taipei. The first-ever airline crew strike in Taiwan had begun. Dissent has been festering for many years and only in the recent months did some of the crew members begin to speak up through China Airlines’ union. The company was blamed for extremely long work hours, low pay on holiday shifts, and various changes China Airlines has made over the years that the crew claimed affected their rights as employee. China Airlines has announced that 8 flights will not be flying June 24. The destinations include Hong Kong, Incheon, Manila, and Fukuoka, and an estimated 1,590 passengers will be affected by the changes. <br/>

Another airline bites the dust of Venezuela’s worsening crisis, adding to the increasingly common sight of a near-empty tarmac at the Simón Bolívar airport serving Caracas. Aeromexico announced Thursday it had halted flights to Venezuela. In the latest signal of the dire state of an economy now ravaged by food riots, the carrier said that “after almost 5 years of having started operations between Mexico City and Caracas, it has decided to suspend its flights indefinitely due to the complex economic environment that rules in the country.” Foreign airlines have been struggling to repatriate money received from Venezuelan customers in local Bolívar currency due to exchange controls. IATA recently said the socialist govt was withholding US$3.8b from the carriers generated from ticket sales. <br/>