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Charter plan may use `fly over' ploy, KMT legislator says

A KMT legislator suggested yesterday that a "fly-over" model, whereby flights fly over Hong Kong or Macau's flight information region (FIR) but do not land, might be a possible solution to the problems surrounding direct cross-strait charter flights during the Chinese New Year holidays.

John Chang (章孝嚴) yesterday told a news conference that prospects for the the fly-over model looked good.

Chang spoke immediately after he returned to Taiwan from a visit to China to discuss the issue.

Taiwan has said that the charter flights must stop in Hong Kong or Macau before continuing on their journey -- thereby maintaining the routes' status as "indirect" links.

China has held out for proper direct flight with no stopover.

Chen Yulin (陳雲林), the director of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, said last Friday: "We think two-way direct flights are a more reasonable approach than having charter flights that stop over in Hong Kong and Macau. We consider [the stopovers] totally unnecessary."

Chang, however, said that Chen's remarks "don't mean that China would reject the fly-over model."

He said that he understood that the Taiwan government wanted to avoid having formal direct flights with China for the time being. Flying over Hong Kong and Macau's FIR might be a satisfactory way for both sides to reach a compromise.

Chang also said that from the meetings he had had with Chinese authorities, he discovered that China did not make it a pre-condition of allowing such flights that its domestic airline companies should be allowed to operate some of the charters.

Taiwan has insisted that the charter flights should only be operated by its own domestic airline companies.

Chang said he would report the results of his visit to officials of the Mainland Affairs Council today.
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