TAIPEI, July 7 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan airline EVA Air has reached an agreement with a union of flight attendants to end the longest strike in Taiwan's aviation history, starting Wednesday.
The airline said flight operation is expected to gradually return to normal by the end of July. So far, over 1,400 flights have been canceled due to the strike, affecting nearly 280,000 passengers.
After several rounds of negotiations, EVA Air agreed to raise service allowance for flight attendants and regularly interact with employees. The union agreed not to launch a strike again in three years.
The airline made apologies for the disturbance and inconvenience caused by the strike. The union expressed hope that EVA Air can treat its flight attendants well just as agreed.
As of Friday, the strike had caused EVA Air a loss of nearly 2.8 billion new Taiwan dollars (about 89.82 million U.S. dollars) in revenue, excluding compensations paid to passengers and the travel industry.
The union announced the strike on June 20 after the two sides failed to agree on per diem allowance and discriminatory treatments for union and non-union employees. In the final agreement, most of the union's requests were not met.
The strike has broken several records in Taiwan's aviation history in terms of the time duration, the number of participating flight attendants, the number of canceled flights, the number of passengers affected, and the loss of the airline and the travel industry.
