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More than 750 PRC tourists taking inaugural flights

A total of 753 Chinese tourists are expected to arrive in Taiwan today as weekend direct cross-strait charter flights commence.

The Civil Aeronautics Administration said that five Taiwanese airlines and six Chinese airlines will each dispatch 18 round-trip flights, making it a total of 36 flights this weekend.

From today through Monday, Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport will handle 16 departing or arriving flights, Songshan Airport in Taipei 13 flights, Kaohsiung International Airport two flights, Makung Airport in Penghu two flights, and Hualien and Taichung airports one flight each.

Tour groups arriving on the first day of the weekend charter flight service today will be greeted with lion dances at the airports.

The visitors include a delegation of 31 Chinese officials headed by Shao Qiwei (邵棋偉), director of the Chinese National Tourism Administration.

Shao is scheduled to meet Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and high-ranking Straits Exchange Foundation officials during his visit.

Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chih-kuo (毛治國) said that Tourism Bureau Director-General Janice Lai (賴瑟珍) would personally receive Shao’s group at Taoyuan.

National Immigration Agency Deputy Director Steve Wu (吳學燕) said that the agency had received 753 entry applications for this weekend’s visit and approved all of them.

“The mainland tourists are our guests,” Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said yesterday following an inspection of Taoyuan airport. “I hope we can work together and impress them with the good nature, politeness, passion and hospitality of the Taiwanese.”

He also expressed hope that cross-strait exchanges would herald a new era in cross-strait relations, with the establishment of the landmark weekend charter flights and agreements between the two sides for further opening.

Taiwan had barred direct travel to and from China for decades as a security measure, but it has allowed limited charter flights in recent years during holidays that skipped the usual stopovers in Hong Kong or other transit points.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY AP AND CNA
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