Economy

Number of Taiwan-mainland flights to increase

• Publication Date：05/24/2010
• Source： Commercial Times

Aviation authorities from Taiwan and mainland China have reached a number of agreements involving passenger and freight plane travel, Lee Long-wen, director-general of the Civil Aeronautics Administration, said May 22.

Speaking at the conclusion of a two-day meeting in Taipei, Lee said starting June 14 the number of weekly direct passenger flights will be increased from the current 270 to 370. Airlines from Taiwan and the mainland will each provide half of the new flights, according to Lee.

Two new routes will also be added. One is between Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Shijiazhuang City in Hebei Province, while the other is the much-anticipated route between Songshan Airport in Taipei and Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai.

For the Songshan-Hongqiao route, 28 direct flights will be flown between the two points each week, with 14 flights assigned to Taiwan airlines and the remaining 14 to mainland Chinese airlines.

Taiwan and mainland China can each designate two or three carriers to fly the Songshan-Hongqiao route, Lee said.

Under the May 29 agreement, it was also agreed that up to 20 chartered passenger travel flights per month can fly between Taichung, Hualien, Taitung or Makung and mainland China. These chartered flights, however, will not be given permission to service seven select mainland cities with extremely high air traffic volume.

Meanwhile, the number of weekly cargo flights will also be increased from the current 28 to 48. At the moment, the only destinations cargo flights originating from Taiwan are allowed to land in are Shanghai and Guangzhou. In the future, four new destinations—Nanjing, Xiamen, Fuzhou and Chongqing—will be added.

Speaking of the agreements, Lee said, “We are not completely satisfied with the results, but we can live with them.”

Taiwan had hoped that the total number of passenger and cargo flights could be increased by 100 percent. However, passenger flights were only increased by 37 percent, while cargo flights are up by 71 percent, Lee noted.

Due to runway restrictions, at the moment only planes smaller than a Boeing 757 or an Airbus A330 will be allowed to fly the Shanghai-Hongqiao route, Lee said.

The next round of cross-strait aviation meetings will be held at the end of October. (HZW)