Taipei, Feb. 2 (CNA) Most of Taiwan's 17 commercial airports saw declines in passenger numbers in 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak, but four offshore airports bucked the trend, according to Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) statistics.
The four airports that saw passenger numbers increase compared to 2019 were Orchid Island airport, Nangan Airport in the Matsu Islands and Chimei Airport and Wanan Airport in the island county of Penghu.
The higher numbers reflected the renewed interest in those islands as domestic tourism destinations in 2020 at a time when Taiwanese were unable to travel overseas because of restrictions imposed due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Orchid Island airport saw the biggest increase in passengers, up 24.6 percent from 46,149 in 2019 to 57,529 in 2020, followed by Wanan Airport, which handled 1,756 passengers last year, a 20 percent increase from the previous year's 1,462, according to the CAA data.
Nangan Airport handled 371,238 passengers last year, up 19.1 percent from 311,653 in 2019, while 20,552 passengers passed through Chimei Airport in 2020, up 11.8 percent from 18,373 in 2019.
Overall, airports in Taiwan handled 18,997,544 passengers in 2020, down from 72,157,443 passengers in 2019.
Domestic demand remained comparable to 2019 levels, with 10.11 million of the nearly 19 million passengers handled by Taiwan's airports in 2020 domestic travelers, down only 17.4 percent from 2019.
But international passengers served plummeted from 59.92 million in 2019 to 8.88 million in 2020.
Taiwan's main international gateway, Taoyuan International Airport, saw its passenger numbers in 2020 plunge 84 percent year-on-year to 7.4 million passengers, more than any airport, because it does not handle domestic flights.
Of those 7.4 million passengers, 91 percent came in the first three months of 2020 before countries around the world clamped down on global travel.
Kaohsiung International Airport, the main gateway to southern Taiwan, served 1.89 million passengers last year, down by about 70 percent from the 7.5 million handled the previous year.
Taipei Songshan Airport, which handles all domestic flights in the Greater Taipei area in addition to some regional international flights, saw less of an overall decline in passenger traffic.
It handled 3.09 million passengers in 2020, down 51.3 percent from 2019's 6.35 million passengers. Of the 2020 total, 2.66 million, or 86.2 percent, were domestic travelers
Taichung International Airport served 1.1 million passengers last year, down 60 percent from 2.82 million in 2019, while passenger traffic fell about 40 percent at Hualien Airport and Tainan Airport, 30 percent at Chiayi Airport and Penghu Airport and less than 10 percent at other airports, according to the figures.
