Taoyuan Airport (previously known as Chiang Kai-shek (CKS) International Airport) has been at the center of criticism recently after of series of problem with facilities, equipment and service quality, leaving Taipei’s Songshan Airport, used for many years mainly for domestic air transport, left to fill the gap and take on the responsibility for Taiwan-Northeast Asia routes.

However, CKS did enjoy some glory days after it was completed in 1979.In the 1960s and 70s, with Taiwan’s economic take-off and rapidly expanding foreign trade, Songshan Airport, restricted by the terrain to just one runway, was clearly not up to the task of coping with the large number of international business travelers expected to visit Taiwan in the future, leaving the national government of the time to actively search for an suitable area of land on which an international airport could be built. In the end Dayuan Township, Taoyuan County was chosen. Site planning began in 1967 and by 1979 the airport was ready for operation. The airport was named Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in honor of the late ROC President.

The year the airport opened was also the year that the government began to allow ordinary citizens to holiday overseas and the human rights restrictions of the Martial Law era gradually began to be loosened, so it could be said that CKS International Airport also symbolized the start of a new era. The film “Chiang Kai-shek International Airport” from the Chinese Taipei Film Archive and shot by the Taiwan Film Studio shows the public enthusiastically celebrating the airport’s opening. This film uses a rare first person narrative, taking viewers on a tour of the airport building’s exterior, restaurants, new computer technology, duty-free stores and conveyor belt. Finally, in an encouraging tone, the reporter says “Chiang Kai-shek International Airport is a safe, comfortable and convenient modern airport.” Perhaps this shows that, with the economy taking off, at the time people were full of confidence in the country and social system.

Filmmaker unknown （Feb. 21,1979-Feb. 23,1979）。(“Chiang Kai-shek International Airport”).(TELDAP Union Catalogs)http://catalog.digitalarchives.tw/?URN=3251481（browsed on Oct 21, 2010）.
(If use authorization is required please contact the Chinese Taipei Film Archives)

We don’t see much of the airport food that had gourmets raving, however, in the film we do see that the airport restaurants have a high-class western restaurant style with waitresses/waiters on hand to meet the diner’s every need, very different to the shopping center food court format restaurants in which customers carry their own trays we have seen in the airport in recent years. It should be remembered that only a minority of people could afford to fly in 1979 and those that could afford to could also afford to be fussy about service quality when they ate!

The reporter also creates a situation to introduce the viewer to the airport’s central control system that, through surveillance cameras all around the airport, allowed a  watch to be kept for any abnormal situation so it could be immediately dealt with. A lost child is crying her eyes out and airport staff immediately call the mother to pick up the child over the public address system. It may seen obvious now that the incident was staged but, at the end of the 1970s, most Taiwanese were unfamiliar with surveillance cameras and the introduction to the integrated system would impress the public and make them think that CKS International Airport really was a place  full of mysterious state-of-the art technology.

In its 32 years of history(Since 1979) Taoyuan International Airport has gone from being an attractive place that carried the expectations of the people to being an airport that is in dire need of drastic measures to put it on the right track and frequently at the center of negative news, a situation that many people will look on and sigh sadly. We all hope that Taoyuan International Airport has a fresh start and is soon once again regarded as a first-class international airport.