FAT passengers get to Shanghai faster

In order to provide a more convenient and less expensive transfer service for passengers traveling to China, Far East Air Transport Corp (FAT, 遠東航空) yesterday inaugurated a Taipei-South Korea-Shanghai flight to serve Shanghai-based Taiwanese businesspeople.

The daily flight has been established in conjunction with China Eastern Airlines (東方航空). Taiwan-ese passengers will fly on FAT from Taipei to South Korea's Cheju Island and transfer to China Eastern's planes for the flight to Shanghai.

In view of the potentially lucrative Taipei-Shanghai flight route, Far East Air isn't the only carrier interested in indirect transport service across the Taiwan Strait. Late last month, China Airlines Co (中華航空) launched a Taipei-to-Shanghai service via Okinawa, also in conjunction with China Eastern Airline.

China Airlines' Taipei-Okinawa-Shanghai service, which began on Sept. 27 with a three flights per week, takes four-and-a-half hours.

The company plans to increase the number of flights on the Taipei-Okinawa-Shanghai route.

"We started to offer seven round-trip same-day connection flights per week on Sunday," Joseph Wu (武志厚), a public relation specialist at China Airlines, told the Taipei Times yesterday.

EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) also began a cargo transport operation in August in collaboration with Shanghai Airlines.