Special `air-sea' plan to bring businesspeople home

Many Taiwanese businessmen based in southern China's Guangdong Province have applied to return to Taiwan for the coming Lunar New Year holidays through a joint "air-sea" transport program initiated by the Taiwanese authorities, an official at the Taiwan Businessmen's Association in Dongguan (東莞台商協會) said Friday.

The proposed transportation program is designed to ease the burdens of traveling across the Taiwan Strait during the holidays, which begin on Jan. 22, said Chen Ming-chih (陳明致), vice chairman of the association.

Nearly 1,000 Taiwanese businessmen and their families living in Guangdong have applied to return home through the package for the holidays, Chen said.

Under the specially designed transportation program, trips to Taiwan will begin with high-speed ferries that will carry passengers from Guangdong to Hong Kong.

From there, passengers will be able to connect to chartered flights back to Taiwan, Chen said.

He added that the arrangement will save them at least one hour of travel time.

For the time being, the first chartered plane under the program is slated to take off Jan. 18, and the last one before Lunar New Year's Eve will fly Jan. 20.

Planes carrying Taiwanese businessmen back to China after the holiday will fly from Jan 25 to Jan. 27.

The special transport program was ironed out by the Taipei-based Straits Exchange Foundation, in cooperation with Taiwanese aviation companies and representatives of Taiwanese businessmen's groups in China after the cross-strait chartered flight services discussed by authorities fell through.

Authorities on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have failed to agree to talks on holiday cross-strait chartered flight service, despite the unprecedented success of a similar arrangement last year.

Beijing said on Wednesday that it would allow Taiwanese airlines to launch direct charter flights from Taiwan to China for the Lunar New Year holidays if Taiwan approved round-trip charter flights for next year. But Taiwanese airlines said it might be too late to arrange such flights as the holidays are just around the corner.

Meanwhile, the Taiwanese government poured cold water on China's call for direct air links during the upcoming holiday, asking China to resume dialogue.