Taiwanese air carriers will not be allowed to operate direct flights to China without government authorization, an official from the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday.
Direct flights across the Taiwan Strait will only be possible after the Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council makes it a national policy before conducting negotiations with Chinese authorities on the plan and forging a formal agreement, CAA Deputy Director-General Chang Kuo-cheng (
Chang urged authorities in Beijing to engage in "official bilateral negotiations" with Taiwan on direct cross-strait flights, saying the sooner this is done, the better.
He made the comments in response to a report that the two countries' aviation industries agreed Friday to offer flights using planes not displaying national flags.
Aviation-industry representatives from both Taiwan and China agreed at a seminar held in Beijing on Friday that if direct bilateral flights become possible in the future, then all aircraft flying cross-strait routes will fly without their respective national flags.
Legislator Elmer Fung (馮滬祥) from the opposition New Party, who headed a Taiwanese delegation to Beijing along with Bao Peide (包培德), deputy director of China's Civil Aviation Administration, made the announcement together after the seminar.
They announced that the two sides came to an agreement that both Taiwan and China have already suffered immense losses in terms of time and money due to the fact that direct-flight services between the two countries remain forbidden.
They said that the survival and development of the aviation industries in both Taiwan and China depend on the opening of direct cross-strait air links.
The two sides also agreed that they hope to rely on private-sector aviation organizations to carry on with regularly or irregularly scheduled evaluations of related technical and operational issues while expanding the topics of discussion.
Commenting on the report, Chang said that because of the uniqueness of the cross-strait relationship, which has prevented Taiwan from applying international practices to solve disputes with China, Taiwan's airlines are not allowed to initiate direct flights to or from China without governmental approval.
The rule applies even though current statutes governing private exchanges across the Strait have not specifically restricted Taiwanese carriers from doing so.
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