China Airlines

China Airlines (CAL) (Chinese: 中華航空; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Hángkōng) (TWSE: 2610) is the flag carrier and largest airline of the Republic of China (Taiwan). It is headquartered in Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and has 11,154 regular employees. China Airlines operates over 1,400 flights weekly to 118 airports in 115 cities (including codeshare) across Asia, Europe, North America and Oceania. The cargo division operates 91 pure freighter flights weekly to 33 destinations. The carrier was, in 2013, the 29th and 10th largest airline in the world in terms of passenger revenue per kilometer (RPK) and freight RPK, respectively. China Airlines has three airline subsidiaries: Mandarin Airlines operates flights to domestic and low-demand regional destinations; China Airlines Cargo operates a fleet of freighter aircraft and manages its parent airline's cargo-hold capacity; Tigerair Taiwan is a low-cost carrier established by China Airlines and Singaporean airline group Tigerair Holdings.

Taipei

Taipei (/ˌtaɪˈpeɪ/, literally means "North of Tai(wan)"), officially known as Taipei City (Chinese: 臺北市 or 台北市; pinyin: Táiběi Shì; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tâi-pak Chhī), is the capital city and a special municipality of Taiwan. Sitting at the northern tip of Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City. It is about 25 km (16 mi) southwest of the northern port city Keelung. The city is mostly located on the Taipei Basin, an ancient lakebed bounded by the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung and Xindian rivers, which join to form the Tamsui River along the city's western border.

The city proper is home to an estimated population of 2,693,672 in 2009, forming the core part of the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area which includes the nearby cities of New Taipei and Keelung with a population of 6,900,273, the 40th most-populous urban area in the world. The name "Taipei" can refer either to the whole metropolitan area or the city proper.

Taipei is the political, economic, educational, and cultural center of Taiwan, and one of the major hubs of the Chinese-speaking world. Considered to be a global city, Taipei is part of a major high-tech industrial area.Railways, high-speed rail, highways, airports, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by two airports – Taipei Songshan and Taiwan Taoyuan. Taipei is home to various world-famous architectural or cultural landmarks which include Taipei 101, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Dalongdong Baoan Temple, Hsing Tian Kong, Mengjia Longshan Temple, National Palace Museum, Presidential Office Building, Taipei Guest House, Ximending, and several night markets dispersing over the city. Its natural features such as Maokong, Yangmingshan, and hot springs are also well known to international visitors.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong (香港; "Fragrant Harbour"), officially Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the southern coast of China at the Pearl River Estuary and the South China Sea. Hong Kong is known for its skyline and deep natural harbour. It has a land area of 1104 km² and shares its northern border with Guangdong Province of Mainland China. With around 7.2 million inhabitants of various nationalities, Hong Kong is one of the world's most densely populated metropolises.

After the First Opium War (1839–42), Hong Kong became a British colony with the perpetual cession of Hong Kong Island, followed by Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 and a 99-year lease of the New Territories from 1898. Hong Kong remained under British control for about a century until the Second World War, when Japan occupied the colony from December 1941 to August 1945. After the Surrender of Japan, the British resumed control. In the 1980s, negotiations between the United Kingdom and the China resulted in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, which provided for the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong on 30 June 1997. The territory became a special administrative region of China with a high degree of autonomy on 1 July 1997 under the principle of one country, two systems. Disputes over the perceived misapplication of this principle have contributed to popular protests, including the 2014 Umbrella Revolution.

Economy class

Economy class, also called coach class, steerage, or standard class, (colloquially: Cattle class), is the lowest travel class of seating in air travel, rail travel, and sometimes ferry or maritime travel. Historically, this travel class has been called tourist class on ocean liners and third class, or even fourth class, on railways. In some contexts or languages it is (half jokingly) referred to as "wood class" because seats and carriages in the cheapest class were literally made from wood in the 19th and early 20th century. Another common term (both in rail travel and aviation) is "coach class".

Marine

Travel classes originated from a distinction between "cabin class" and "steerage" on sailing vessels in the 18th century. Cabin class, for wealthier passengers included small cabins and a shared dining room while "steerage" provided open decks with bunks often near the tackle to operate the steering rudder, usually in converted cargo space on the "between decks" area where passengers from poorer backgrounds cooked their own meals.

Flight

Flight is the process by which an object moves, through an atmosphere (the air in the case of earth) or beyond it (as in the case of spaceflight) without direct support from any surface. This can be achieved by generating aerodynamic lift, propulsive thrust, aerostatically using buoyancy, or by ballistic movement.

Many things fly, from natural aviators such as birds, bats and insects to human inventions such as missiles, aircraft such as airplanes, helicopters and balloons, to rockets such as spacecraft.

The engineering aspects of flight are studied in aerospace engineering which is subdivided into aeronautics, the study of vehicles that travel through the air, and astronautics, the study of vehicles that travel through space, and in ballistics, the study of the flight of projectiles.

Types of flight

Buoyant flight

Humans have managed to construct lighter than air vehicles that raise off the ground and fly, due to their buoyancy in air.

An aerostat is a system that remains aloft primarily through the use of buoyancy to give an aircraft the same overall density as air. Aerostats include free balloons, airships, and moored balloons. An aerostat's main structural component is its envelope, a lightweight skin containing a lifting gas to provide buoyancy, to which other components are attached.