Information of TTFly: Premier Lin Chuan said Friday there must be blind spots in the management of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, one day after a heavy downpour and flash floods disrupted air traffic at the country's main international gateway.
"It is a management problem that has been in existence for a long time," the premier said, adding that "there must be blind spots in management."
The airport's problems were not confined to Thursday, he said, suggesting that there have always been problems. He did not elaborate but the airport terminals are known to have sprung leaks when there were heavy downpours, forcing the staff to use buckets and mops to keep the floor dry.
More than 160 millimeters of rain fell in a three-hour time span in Taoyuan on Thursday morning, resulting in severe flooding, a power outage and computer glitches that left the airport in a state of chaos.
Water inundated the airport's basement food courts and parking lots and an underpass connecting the airport to National Freeway No. 2, and more than 200 flights and 30,000 passengers were affected.
Vice Premier Lin Hsi-yao was at the airport Friday to learn more about the damage caused by the flooding.
The vice premier said airport operations have gradually returned to normal but because the supply of power to Terminal 2 has yet to be fully restored, some departures have been shifted from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1.
He said the top priority of the Executive Yuan will be to identify the cause of the problems, and it will form a task force and invite experts and scholars to join in the investigation.
Lin said the inundation was not related to the surge of the Puhsin River near the airport as a result of the heavy rain, suggesting instead it may have been caused by an overflow of the airport's sewage system, according to a preliminary investigation.
But whether it was design flaws or insufficient maintenance will have to be further investigated by the task force, which the vice premier promised would make suggestions for short-term improvements within three days.
The Executive Yuan will get to the bottom of who should be responsible and demand Taoyuan Airport Corp. to make improvements, he pledged.
Taoyuan Airport Corp. CEO Fei Hourng-jiun said the company will wait for an objective joint assessment by the Water Resources Agency, the Taoyuan City government, his company and experts of what caused the flooding but said the intensity of the rain could not be discounted.
"This is the first time that Taoyuan airport has encountered a situation (like Thursday's) in 30 years," Fei said, referring to the continuous heavy rains that persisted for two hours and 15 minutes.
He also said the airport will make an overall assessment of the losses suffered by passengers and issue compensation as warranted.
