What it’s like to take a flight to nowhere: a desperate Taiwanese airline, ecstatic passengers, but still a trail of engine exhaust

Taiwanese airlines are offering ‘micro holidays’ to travel-hungry people, taking off and landing in the same place so they can experience overseas-like travel

Other airlines in Asia have followed the island’s lead, and ‘there have been few objections from environmental groups’ in the region says one industry expert

Reading Time:4 minutes

An EVA Airways jet is readied for a flight to nowhere from Taiwan, taking off and landing in the same place so passengers can experience ‘overseas-like travel’. Photo: courtesy of EVA Airways

Published: 3:15pm, 13 Oct 2020Updated: 6:03pm, 14 Oct 2020

Three passengers negotiate with a flight attendant over duty-free cosmetics as another slams down her window shade on the sun streaming in from the west. The captain interrupts the movies playing on seat back screens to issue a warning before the A330-300 wags through turbulence over the Pacific Ocean. Exhaust trails invisibly from the jet engines.

So far, so normal – although the flight path is anything but.

The captain of EVA Airways Flight BR5888 tells his 309 passengers – a full cabin – he will fly east from Taipei’s Taoyuan International Airport, to give them an “extremely clear” view of the airport on the tiny Japanese island of Yonaguni, before swinging the aircraft back, and then towards Taiwan’s southernmost peninsula. The 2.5-hour flight will land where it took off.

The airline bills this ride as “overseas-like travel”. Passengers are taking it because they miss true overseas travel, which has been made almost impossible by coronavirus border controls, including Taiwan’s own 14-day quarantine rule for anyone who deplanes from abroad. Regular domestic flights in Taiwan last just 30 minutes and lack rituals such as passport checks and duty-free shopping.

An in-flight map shows a flight entering its descent after being in the air around Taiwan, on October 9, 2020. Photo: Ralph Jennings

Taiwanese carriers EVA, Starlux Airlines and China Airlines are flying people in jagged circles to make a bit of money, retain passenger loyalty and keep their fleets in shape during the aviation industry’s hardest year on record – and the flights are selling out.