China Airlines Co (華航) will take the lead in offering indirect chartered flights to and from China during the Lunar New Year holidays, the Taipei Airlines Association (台北市航空運輸公會) said yesterday.
According to a schedule coordinated by the association, a China Airlines plane is set to make a ferry flight from Taipei to Shanghai via Hong Kong Jan. 26 to transport businesspeople and their families back home for the holiday.
Three other airlines -- EVA Airways Corp (
China Airlines is also scheduled to operate a chartered flight from Taipei to Shanghai via Hong Kong Feb. 5.
On the same day, EVA will operate a Taipei-Shanghai chartered flight via Macau while UNI will offer a Kaohsiung-Shanghai chartered flight via Macau. Trans Asia is also scheduled to operate a chartered flight to Shanghai via Macau that day, but it has yet to decide whether to start the journey from Taipei or Kaohsiung.
Both Mandarin Airlines and Far Eastern Air Transport will operate Shanghai-bound chartered flights from Taipei on Feb. 7, with the former making a stopover in Hong Kong and the latter making a stop in Macau.
China Airlines and EVA said they plan to use jumbo jets for the chartered flights.
But so far, no Taiwanese businesspeople have approached the airlines to book seats.
In an effort to allow businesspeople working in China to return home more easily for the holiday, the government has approved local carriers to operate chartered flights between Jan. 26 and Feb. 10.
According to international aviation norms, such chartered flights require no prior consultations between Taiwanese and Chinese authorities. Carriers need only submit applications directly to respective aviation agencies. China has yet to announce the procedures it requires for the proposed chartered flights.
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New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last