The touchdown of flight CI585 at Pudong
International Airport, Shanghai on Saturday marked the start of the
peak in non-stop charter travel between the Chinese mainland and
Taiwan over the?
Spring Festival?period.
Taiwan-based China Airlines' service is being
followed by 16 other return flights before the start of the
festival on Wednesday, also known as Chinese Lunar New Year.
They comprise six on Saturday, four on Sunday and
another six on Monday, between Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou on
the mainland and Kaohsiung and Taipei in Taiwan.
? The first direct charter plane in 56 years carrying 242
Taiwan business people and their families from the Chinese mainland
landed in Taipei on January 29.
In the three-week-long scheme, airlines from the
mainland and Taiwan are running 48 non-stop, return trips.
Civil aviation
professionals from both sides of the Straits reached consensus on
the plan earlier last month in Macao.
The charter flights were warmly welcomed by Taiwan
business people and their relatives. China Southern Airlines said
that some passengers on the first flight had booked round-trip
tickets simply to take part in the event.
Many said the 56-year-old ban on direct flights
across the Straits should be permanently lifted. "We should have
these flights all year round, not just the holiday," one
unidentified traveler told media.
In 2003, Taiwan civil jetliners were allowed to fly
to the mainland for the first time since 1949 under a similar
scheme. However, due to restrictions of the Taiwan authorities, the
flights had to make stopovers in Hong Kong or Macao and no mainland
airlines were involved.
It is estimated that there are now more than
700,000 Taiwan business people investing in the mainland and
staying there for most of the year.
(Xinhua News Agency February 6, 2005)