Kaohsiung International Airport - History

History

Originally built as an Imperial Japanese Navy Air Squadron base in 1938 during the Taiwan under Japanese rule era, Kaohsiung Airport retained its military purpose when the Republic of China government first took control of Taiwan. Due to the need for civil transportation in southern Taiwan, the airport was demilitarized and converted into a domestic civil airport in 1965, and further upgraded to an international airport in 1969, with regular international flights starting in 1972.

During 1970s and 1980s, direct international flights were rare in Siaogang Airport, with Hong Kong and Tokyo being the only two destinations. Since early 1990s, dedicated connection flights to Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, now as Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, were inaugurated, and this brought southern Taiwan travelers much convenience; they can transit via the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport where there was a higher availability of international flights. In the meantime, direct flights to South-east Asia cities were also gradually opened. This reduced the inconvenience that travelers in southern Taiwan needed to travel to the Taoyuan in the north before flying south. These contributed to a steady growth in airport passenger and flight movements. New terminal dedicated to international flights was opened in 1997 to handle the additional flights.

In summer 1998, EVA Air opened a direct flight between Kaohsiung and Los Angeles, but it was discontinued only three months later due to low ridership. Northwest Airlines also served Siaogang Airport, operating from Kansai Airport from 1999 to 2001, and Narita Airport from 2002 to 2003. These two routes were separately suspended due to the low load factor caused by the September 11, 2001 attacks and SARS.

After the Taiwan High Speed Rail's inauguration in January 2007, the Kaohsiung airport suffered great losses in passenger/flight movements; the Taiwan High Speed Rail and record-high costs of jet fuel are eating up most load factors to Taipei Songshan Airport and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (frequent buses link the Taoyuan Airport and the THSR Taoyuan Station). Some carriers dropped the two routes while other carriers reduced flights. Carriers now pin their hopes on the increasing flights to Japan, China and Korea.