For the last three decades, air travelers on the Tokyo-Taipei route have utilized Narita International Airport and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.
But with restoration from last month of international flights between Tokyo's Haneda Airport and Taipei's dilapidated Songshan Airport, round-trip travelers will shave four to six hours off their travel time — time that mostly would have been spent traveling from the city centers to the respective airports.
There are shades of deja vu: That the restoration of an air route that had existed well before the jet era can be heralded as "progress" seems to be a symptom of our topsy-turvy times.