Taipei Songshan Airport

✅ Trip Verified | It is located in the city center and easily accessible by buses and MRT. The size is not big. Signposts are clear. Employees are friendly and helpful. The ambience is clean.

✅ Trip Verified | Queuing time was 45 minutes long to get through. The staff were unhelpful. I cannot imagine a single person in that exceedingly long queue thought there was not a better way to do this process. If you can avoid transferring flights at this airport, do so. It is inefficient. I keep thinking they'll correct it but in seven years, it has remained the same.

Not Verified | What to say. I transit every year in 6 or 8 airports and first time here as first time with EVA Air. May be I have been spoiled by traveling with SIA or Qatar Airways but here it looks like a 1980 flashback. Dark, old and odd! First and last time.

Songshan is the most convenient airport if you are heading to Taipei. It is centrally located in downtown Taipei and has direct access to the MRT (subway) system. It is smaller than Taoyuan International Airport, the main international airport of the island but you are literally 10-15 minutes from the city center. Songshan mainly serves domestic flights within Taiwan but has direct flights to Tokyo (HND, NRT), Seul Gimpo and Shanghai (PVG, SHA). Taoyuan will have a direct connection to Taipei Main Station before the end of 2016 served by a High Speed Subway system (Taoyuan Airport MRT). The MRT claims to reach Taipei in about 36 minutes. There are two terminals, the first one is for domestic and the second one is international. Both terminals are in the same building but after clearing immigration you are separated. This could be a little bit bothersome because the stores are different. I have been to both the domestic (Kinmen - Taipei) and international (Taipei - Shanghai) and I find the international to have a better design but smaller choice of shops. Due to its small nature, I have rarely experienced lanes going longer than 15-20 minutes. It is my go to airport as I am largely based in Taipei when I am there.

I arrived here from Tokyo Haneda. Two other flights arrived at the same time, so there was a queue at immigration, which took 15 minutes. My baggage was waiting for me at baggage claim. Although older and smaller than TPE, this airport is super convenient for visitors to Taipei. Fewer passengers, decent shopping, very close to downtown and served by a metro line. I flew out of Songshan to HND once before and was surprised at how easy it was to deal with.

Decided to fly via Kinmen to mainland China instead of HKG. This required using Taipei's older Songshan Airport instead of Taoyuan Airport. Access to the airport is very quick and easy using the Taipei Metro direct to the front of the airport, something that Taoyuan is yet to get. I used the Domestic Terminal, which is odd in many ways as the domestic arrangements in Taiwan do not follow an international standard. For a start there is a 10KG limit, despite the airline's website saying 20KG was okay (the error was simply a copy and paste from the airline international sister airline and followed international rules). The Check-In counter were arranged in small islands however after getting your boarding pass, you then had to go to another counter along the airside wall for your baggage. While the queue was almost non-existent, why it can not be done at the same counter at the same time defies logic. Baggage tags simply state the name of your destination in English and Chinese, no bar codes and no straight forward ability for transferring to other flights. Due to the limited space on the airside gates, passengers are asked to wait in the Check-In Hall where there are amble lounges and 7Eleven convenience store. When your flight number appears above the Security Door, you can then proceed through to your gate. Flights are very frequent and regular, so this was not a great issue and waiting by the gate or the lounge makes little difference. Overall it was efficient and quick, despite it's quirky nature. On my return flight, the baggage hall housed two belts and the bags appeared quickly enough and I was through and on the metro back into Taipei in little time.