Economic development has driven the demand for tourism and business air transport. Taichung International Airport, an important gateway for more than 7 million people in Central Taiwan, is facing a huge increase in the number of passengers and is in urgent need of expansion. However, it is stuck in the military-civilian joint use restrictions. The development plan formulated five years ago has only completed the overall improvement of the existing terminal and the construction of new connections and apron taxiways; the third terminal, remote apron, and aerospace industry zone have been left on paper for many years.
Taichung Airport currently has more than 30 international routes. In the first seven months of this year, Taichung Airport carried more than 2.01 million passengers. It is estimated that the total passenger volume this year will increase from 2.75 million last year, and may even exceed 3 million.
However, there are only two luggage carousels at Taichung Airport, and most international flights arrive in the afternoon. If two flights arrive at the same time, passengers will have to wait for about half an hour to get their luggage. Parking is also a big problem, and even a fake parking lot is hard to find.
The Qingquangang Base of the Air Force where Taichung Airport is located is divided into Yangdong District and Yangxi District based on the runway. Yangdong District is used by the military. Although Yangxi District is within the scope of civil aircraft activities, most of the land belongs to the Air Force. Military aircraft take off and land on the runway. Priority is given to military aircraft. The construction of military land and Yangxi District is difficult, which has become the biggest problem in the development of Taichung Airport.
Taiwan neutrality committee member He Xinchun believes that in the short term, the airport must be built first and the luggage carousel. In the medium and long term, the central government is required to coordinate the land division of the Ministry of National Defense and the military flight curfew time, and build a third terminal as soon as possible. The Ministry of Transportation and the Civil Aviation Administration must submit the Taichung Airport 2045 overall plan before the end of the year.
Taiwan neutral committee member Jiang Qichen said that the third terminal of Taichung Airport was included in the next phase of the project as early as 2019. The central government must clarify where it is stuck? Faced with restrictions on military-civilian use, the central government should proactively coordinate and propose an executable and trackable construction schedule while taking into account national defense and aviation safety. Legislator Tsai Chi-chang also said that adding parking spaces, building temporary parking lots or introducing a transfer mechanism should be evaluated as soon as possible to accelerate the Taichung Airport Gateway project.
Lin Guoxian, deputy director of the Ministry of Transportation, pointed out that the Taichung Airport Civil Aviation Station currently uses only 30 hectares, or about 2%, of the land area. In the future, it will need to enter Yangxi District to have enough space. As for the overall planning for 2045, the Civil Aviation Administration is in progress.
The Civil Aviation Administration of the Ministry of Transportation stated that major international airports (Songshan, Taichung, and Kaohsiung) undergo "overall planning" revisions in principle once every five years. The 2045 system plan has been submitted to the Executive Yuan for review. The 2045 overall plans for Songshan, Taichung, and Kaohsiung airports are currently under continuous review and revision in accordance with the established schedule, and will be submitted in accordance with the procedures after completion.
Huang Tailin, a professor at the Department of Shipping Management at Evergreen University, analyzed that as Taichung routes have continued to increase in recent years, there is indeed a need for expansion. However, due to the fact that Qingquangang Airport is a joint-military and civilian airport, national defense security takes precedence over civil aviation, and the main driver is the military. Therefore, the Civil Aviation Administration needs to coordinate with the Ministry of National Defense. In addition, the Civil Aviation Administration may consider the balance between the north and the south. The airspace of Taichung and Taoyuan airports is relatively close, while the south and north are longer distances, so construction is in order.
Lu Yanliang, director of the Department of Aviation at the Chaoyang University of Science and Technology, said that Taichung Airport is limited by its positioning as a "central regional gateway, aircraft maintenance industry cluster and resilient backup" and is difficult to develop due to its unique military-civilian uses. The expansion of contact taxiways and apron completed in the past is precisely to ensure smooth ground movement, sufficient operation and emergency diversion backup resilience, and to avoid the congestion of ground operations caused by the blind construction of large terminals. He suggested accelerating the approval and construction of the Orange Line of the Taichung MRT, evaluating the elevated approach road from the national highway to the airport, building a three-dimensional parking lot on public land in the periphery, starting the planning and environmental assessment of the third terminal, improving operational efficiency, and speeding up the construction of an "aircraft maintenance zone" by combining the advantages of the central aerospace and precision machinery clusters.
According to statistics from the Civil Aviation Administration, the number of aircraft movements and passengers at Taichung International Airport has increased year by year, from 18,910 flights and 1,499,320 passengers in 2023 to 18,520 flights and 2,013,569 passengers as of July this year.
