EVA Air pilot fired for illicit affairs during quarantine

長榮航空機師在隔離期間因違法行為被解僱

EVA Air pilot fired after he was found to have dated over 10 women during quarantine, swindled them out of money


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — EVA Air has confirmed that it has fired a pilot after reports surfaced that he had allegedly engaged in illicit affairs with multiple women and conned them out of money while undergoing quarantine.

Amid the furor over the actions of an EVA Air cargo pilot from New Zealand which led to a cluster infection of pilots as well as the infection of a Quanta Computers employee, a woman came forward on Tuesday (Dec. 29) to allege that a married first officer who flies the same fleet of EVA Air 777 jets as the New Zealander had affairs with multiple women, including while under quarantine. Another woman alleged that he even invited her over to his home in Taoyuan while he was undergoing quarantine.

On Tuesday (Dec. 29), Mirror Media cited a woman as claiming that she had been dating the pilot for three years and even divorced her previous husband to be with him. However, she recently discovered that he was married as well as the fact that he had been using social media to arrange sexual encounters with other women.

She began to contact other women he had been dating and found that in some cases he had borrowed large sums of money ranging from NT$500,000 to NT$1 million. She managed to track down over 10 different women who had fallen victim to his pattern of behavior, including some flight attendants and a manicurist.

One of the victims said that the man had flirted with her online and claimed to be a rich second-generation "ABC" (American-born Chinese) who had moved to Taiwan to work for EVA Air as a first officer. She claimed that he denied being married and at one point suddenly asked if he could borrow NT$1 million.

The victim said that while the pilot was supposed to be undergoing quarantine, he would often invite her into his home in Taoyuan's Nankan area to engage in intimate behavior. Having heard enough, the woman who started the investigation then sent a demand letter to the airline, but she claimed that it responded by replying that it was not responsible for the pilot's personal matters.

However, after EVA Air was questioned by the news site over the incident, it stated that after an investigation, it found that the pilot had allowed a friend to visit him for two hours during the quarantine period. According to the airline, when the pilot was confronted about the illegal visit, he confessed the breach of protocol.

After a committee investigated the allegations and confirmed the evidence, the case was transferred to a disciplinary committee, which decided to terminate the man's employment at EVA Air, while another pilot is under investigation. The airline said that since March, four of its pilots and flight attendants have been caught violating epidemic prevention regulations and been removed from their posts, reported Apple Daily.

When asked to comment by the media at a press conference on Tuesday, Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) Spokesman Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) stated that the case was handled by the Civil Aeronautics Administration and the pilot has been punished.