Taiwanese airline Far Eastern Air Transport has announced that it will stop flying effective Friday.
In an announcement put out Thursday, the airline cited financial difficulties as the reason for the closure.
The airline had suffered from poor finances before. In 2008, it declared bankruptcy before taking to the skies again three years later. At the time of closure, it operated 62 routes both within Taiwan and to a range of cities in Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia.
The airline’s chairman, Chang Kang-wei, faces legal repercussions for the sudden nature of the airline’s closure. Under the Act for Worker Protection of Mass Redundancy, companies of the airline’s size must give 60 days’ notice before large-scale layoffs.
The act allows the government to bar violators from leaving the country. The Taipei City Department of Labor says it plans to ask the labor ministry to block Chang from traveling abroad.