There’s a new twist in the Air New Zealand 787 diversion story…it appears China denied the aircraft landing rights over a reference to Taiwan on the flight paperwork.
In case you missed my story yesterday, an Air New Zealand 787-9 enroute from Auckland to Shanghai was forced to turn around five hours into the flight and return to Auckland. The particular 787-9 operating the flight was one of Air New Zealand’s recent deliveries and had not been fully registered with the Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) of China.
Initially, that seemed to be the problem: the registration simply had not been processed. But today we learn of a new twist in the story, first reported by Stuff News. Apparently, Air New Zealand submitted an old version of the paperwork to Chinese authorities. Part of the requisite paperwork requires listing what destinations the aircraft serves. Air New Zealand listed “Taipei, Taiwan” as one of the destinations.
China had warned Air New Zealand to remove any references to Taiwan as a separate nation from its paperwork in 2018, but the carrier “forgot” to do so on the paperwork for this particular aircraft. Consequently, China punished Air New Zealand by denying the aircraft authority to land in Shanghai.
CONCLUSION
Yesterday I blamed Air New Zealand and today I’ll add some blame the People’s Republic of China. Ultimately, Air New Zealand knew the requirements and did not follow them. That remains unchanged. But if the issue was one reference to Taiwan, talk about a case of petty overreaction. The insecurity and fear of the People’s Republic over the Republic of China is a fascinating geopolitical chess game that airlines continue to be unwitting participants in.
image: Air New Zealand
A case of millennials and sjw in the workplace.
I doubt PRC CAA is a bunch of millennials and SJWs, if anything they look like people who are on power-tripping authority
Eff China. The most oppressive nation in the field.
Taiwan should change its name to “True Republic of China” or “Democratic republic of China”.
That mainland vhinese people like lemmings support their government that is not democratically elected i.e supporting things against their own self interests reminds me of Republicans in the USA.
Your Democrat folks in the US want to get rid of air travel altogether (see Green New Deal.) That sounds a lot more like Red China than anything repubs do. Correct?
This sort of nonsense is going to continue until the rest of the world decides to stand up to China. Were I New Zealand (presuming Chinese airlines fly into the country directly) I’d pick a day and decide that all the flights inbound to the country had problems with their paperwork and turn them around.
But in the end nothing is going to happen because no one wants to confront China on the issue. Which means events like the will continue to occur in various fashions when someone dares utter the word Taiwan.
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@121 Pilot, were I in charge (and not accountable) I would simply insist that China’s applications must refer to Taipei as in Taiwan.
Would have been ironic if the flight just landed in TPE instead and let Air NZ rebook their pax to star alliance partners to fly to PVG.
Agree.
The amount of self entitlement in the article and comments section is astonishing. Just because other have different opinion, doesn’t automatically mean they are wrong and you are right. Then again education and educated thoughts were never the strong suit of your kind either….
“Your kind”?
Yup. To be interpreted as any reader wished for. Good or bad, your call
James you need some education about the relationship Taiwan and China. Self entitlement? Your kind? Wonder where exactly are you located.
So some people fled to taiwan. The ensuing relationship stemmed from a long time ago. Who are we to judge either side was wrong and the other was right? We are a self entitled people with big mouth opinion without any knowledge thereto, is it then?
Any sense if this could have been solved by saying “Taipei, China”? Taiwan is still officially the “Republic of China”. Saying “China” could keep things sufficiently ambiguous based on your politics. But “Taiwan” for sure is not.
I respect everyone’s opinions. I want a united China. You guys think you know “China”. I am laughing by reading some the the comments.
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