China Airlines and its domestic unit, Mandarin Airlines, said yesterday they had become the latest Taiwanese carriers to win approval from China to operate charter flights to China.
China Airlines, the nation's biggest carrier, said it received permission to operate the flights to Shanghai during the Lunar New Year holiday, which begins at the end of this month.
The approval looks destined to make China Airlines the first Taiwanese carrier to land in China in more than five decades. The carrier's first charter flight is scheduled to land at Pudong international airport in Shanghai at 9am on Jan. 26, taking off to return to Taipei at 11am.
It will operate two charter flights during the period, said spokesman Roger Han (韓粱中). The second flight will be on Feb. 9, with both using Boeing 747-400s, which can carry as many as 500 passengers.
Mandarin Airlines, which will also operate two charter flights via Hong Kong, will use Boeing 737-800 aircraft, spokeswoman Linda Hsiao (
"CAAC [Civil Aviation Administration of China] is quickening the pace of review of Taiwanese airlines' applications to operate chartered flights between China and Taiwan," a CAAC official said.
According to CAAC, the review process has been slow because "some of the airlines applications forms are not complete."
"Moreover, the airlines have been changing the schedules for their flights, which has caused difficulties for CAAC in confirming when the airlines can operate their flights," the official said.
China Airlines, Eva Airways Corp, Mandarin Airlines, TransAsia Airways, Far Eastern Air and UniAir applied to fly a combined 12 charter flights to China for the Lunar New Year.
Eva spokeswoman Katherine Ke (
CAAC approved the application of FAT (Far Eastern Air Transport) on Friday, making it the first Taiwanese airline to obtain the approval.
Meanwhile, the Executive Yuan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) predicted that some 13,000 China-based Taiwanese businessmen will return to Taiwan for Lunar New Year using the "small three links."
People using the links will set off by boat from Fujian Province's Xiamen to Kinmen, and will return to Taiwan by air.
But FAT, one of the main carriers serving the Kinmen-Taipei route, said that only 1,515 people had applied to use the links.
The deadline for application to use the links is Jan. 10.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Ling-shan (林陵三) instructed the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) yesterday to operate flights from Kinmen until late at night if necessary to minimize the impact of likely delays due to heavy fog which sometimes cause the Kinmen airport to close.
Also, CAA Director Billy Chang (張國政) told reporters that the CAA will look into possible alternatives to unpopular security requirements which oblige passengers to collect their luggage for screening after disembarking at Kinmen, only then to have to check it in for their onward flight to Taipei.
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