The nation's first charter flight to Shanghai on Sunday has brought high hopes to air and shipping transportation industry leaders who yesterday encouraged the government to step-up direct links plans.
"It's a historic breakthrough," said China Airlines Co (華航) spokesman Roger Han (韓梁中). "However, whether direct links will eventually materialize is contingent upon government policy changes."
China Airlines shares yesterday dropped a slight NT$0.1, or 0.5 percent, to close at NT$16.8.
Pending resumption of cross-strait negotiations, the government has laid down plans to gradually open up direct links, which would allow sea links to happen before air links, and the transport of commodities before passengers.
Han said that direct air transport would benefit passengers in terms of travel time and costs.
If restrictions that bar Chinese people from visiting Taiwan were be further lifted, "the business pie would be greatly expanded to bring in actual growth for the industry," Han added.
"There would be benefits for both sides. [For example,] round trip tickets between Taiwan and Shanghai may be lowered from the current NT$15,000 to NT$9,000," he said.
Approximately 2 million Tai-wanese fly China Airlines to Hong Kong per year. But only 100,000 Chinese visit Taiwan annually.
But Han upheld the importance of opening up direct shipment of air cargo, saying this link will immediately boost the na-tion's economic development, especially for IT and the transportation industries.
To build up world competitiveness, most IT producers have abandoned time-consuming sea transportation and taken advantage of air shipment to speed up deliveries.
Moreover, if direct air cargo transportation is put in place, local airliners would also be able to compete with Hong Kong and Chinese carriers, and grab market share of shipments between the greater China region and North America, Han added.
* NT$250 million would be saved on yearly sea cargo shipments.
* NT$440 million would be saved on yearly air cargo shipments.
* Shipments would take one day less across the Taiwan Strait.
* Tourist money could come from China if restrictions on Chinese tourism were also lifted.
According to a report proposed by George Chen (
Local shipping companies, however, yesterday expressed less enthusiasm than airlines about direct links.
Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) refused to comment, saying the company respects the government's decisions on implementing direct links.
Yang Chung-chih (楊仲池), secretary general of Chinese Maritime Research Institute (中華海運研究協會), said that with or without direct sea transportation, the industry's growth and earnings/costs estimates remain unchanged.
He said that it usually takes shippers one extra day and an extra fee of US$4,000 to send goods via a third stop.
The extra costs have have traditionally been mitigated by shipping companies that take advantage of the stopovers in Hong Kong by picking up additional merchandise.
Therefore, shipping companies may still make stopovers in Hong Kong even if direct cross-strait links are allowed, he added.
RSS