Eva Air has pledged to help arrange flight seats for passengers or help them transfer to flights of other airlines.PHOTO: EPA-EFE

Authorities at Tan Son Nhat Airpot announced on June 23 that a total of 15 return flights operated by Eva Airways would be cancelled between June 20-28.

"Eva Airways have sent a letter to inform us about the incident and seek our support to minimise inconvenience for passengers," the airport said. "Currently, they can only operate flights at noon, with cancellations on all morning and evening flights."

Eva Airways said they were discussing with the attendants' union and hoped to reach an agreement soon to continue normal operations.

According to The Straits Times, more than 640 flights will be cancelled from Sunday (June 23) to Friday due to the strike, which is expected to affect over 100,000 passengers.

The flight attendants' union announced the strike last Thursday after the two sides failed to agree on a per diem allowance.

Impacted flight destinations included cities in North America, Europe, South-east Asia and elsewhere.

The airline also said Saturday that it was not taking new reservations until June 29.

The strike, which has been joined by more than 1,000 employees, is impacting about half of the airline's daily carrying capacity.

Since late Thursday, Eva Air staff have been holding sit-in protests outside the company's headquarters in Taoyuan in northern Taiwan.

Union members said the strike was likely to be long term since management was not yielding to demands over daily allowances and other points of contention.

Taiwan's transport ministry has established an emergency taskforce to deal with the strike.

Nguoi Lao Dong/Dtinews