Taipei: Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport has strong potential to become a major transfer hub between Southeast Asia and North America, but still faces constraints in route diversity, airline density, and terminal capacity, experts said. Taoyuan handled 22.1 percent of the 9.82 million passengers traveling from Southeast Asia to nine destinations in North America directly connected to the airport, the Institute of Transportation under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said in a report released in March. According to Focus Taiwan, the figure was second only to Incheon International Airport's 23.6 percent and ahead of rivals including Tokyo's Haneda and Narita airports and Hong Kong International Airport. Hwang Tay-lin, a professor of aviation management at Chang Jung Christian University, noted that transfer passengers account for only about 15 percent of total traffic at Taoyuan Airport. Compared with established hubs such as Singapore Changi, Incheon, and Hong Kong, Taoyuan still lags in route diversity, airline density, and terminal capacity. Nevertheless, he said airlines are more likely to expand their destination networks once passenger volumes reach a larger scale. Providence University tourism professor Huang Cheng-tsung stated that Taoyuan remains attractive to transfer passengers, particularly compared with more congested hubs such as Hong Kong and Singapore Changi. The expected completion of Terminal 3 and a third runway will increase capacity by around 50 percent, improving service quality and competitiveness, Huang added.