The chartered flights across the Taiwan Straits, specially launched
for Taiwan business people working or living on the Chinese
mainland during the Spring Festival, or Chinese lunar new year,
concluded in Shanghai Sunday night.
The last of the flights, Flight CI 585 of Taiwan's China
Airlines, landed at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport
at 11:14 pm Sunday, with 222 passengers on board.
Beginning Jan. 26, with the approval of the Civil Aviation
Administration of China, six Taiwan-based airlines ran 16
cross-Straits chartered flights between Taipei, Kaohsiung and
Shanghai.
A
total of 1,293 Taiwan business people and their families went home
for family reunions during the Spring Festival on the leaving
flights, and 1,261 people have returned to Shanghai after the
weeklong vacation.
This was the first time since 1949 that Taiwanese civil aviation
airplanes were allowed to fly to the Chinese mainland. The flights
assumed significance as they were widely regarded as a prelude to a
direct air link across the Taiwan Straits.
However, due to restrictions from the Taiwan authorities, the
flights had to make stopovers in Hong Kong or Macao on their way to
Shanghai or returning trips, and no airlines from the Chinese
mainland were involved.
Still, the mainland airlines, especially the Shanghai-based China Eastern
Airlines, gave all-out support to their counterparts from
Taiwan, providing a first-class ground service and offering all
necessary flight data. The Taiwanese airlines had expressed their
appreciation of all the assistance they had received.
Sources with the Shanghai airport said that the China Airlines
plane was scheduled to leave Shanghai for Taiwan shortly after
midnight. It would be carrying no passengers.
(Xinhua News Agency February 10, 2003)