Five Taiwan airlines were recognized for excellence in occupational health and safety at a triannual interministerial awards ceremony Dec. 18 in Taipei City.
Organized by Taiwan Centers for Disease Control under the Ministry of Health and Welfare; Civil Aeronautics Administration, Ministry of Transportation and Communications; and Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Ministry of Labor, the awards spanned 25 areas such as emergency response capability, regular health reporting practices and routine sanitation procedures.
Top honors went to EVA Airways Corp., headquartered in northern Taiwan’s Taoyuan City, for a health management system ensuring employees and passengers potentially exposed to infectious diseases during in-flight service can be quickly identified and provided with necessary treatment. Other awarded carriers are China Airlines and Tigerair Taiwan, both based in Taoyuan, and Taipei-headquartered Mandarin Airlines and Uni Air.
Chou Jih-haw, director general of CDC, said during the awards ceremony that Taiwan’s airlines are a credit to the air transportation industry, and committed to setting new benchmarks in occupational health and safety. It is hoped the private sector will follow the lead of the award recipients in striving to do even more to safeguard the health of the country’s 23 million people, he added.
A regular winner in global surveys, EVA was named last month best overall carrier in East Asia by U.S.-based Airline Passenger Experience Association, or APEX. It is also one of the world’s 20 safest airlines for the sixth year running, according to the latest assessment by Australia-headquartered aviation reviews website AirlineRatings.com. (YCH-E)
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