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CAA yet to sign off on cross-strait flights

Though cross-strait charter flight services are scheduled to be launched this Friday, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) has yet to settle certain issues regarding the flight schedules.

CAA director general Billy Chang (張國政) said yesterday in the Legislature’s Transportation Committee that Mandarin Airlines had decided to cancel its pilot flight, as it had failed to attract enough customers.

The flight was originally scheduled to leave on Friday at 3:30am from Taoyuan to Nanjing.

On its return trip, the airplane will land in Taitung instead.

The cancellation of the flight made CAA the target of criticism from lawmakers, who said that the administration was not doing enough to help local governments in this regard.

Meanwhile, the Tourism Bureau confirmed yesterday that 687 Chinese tourists will be arriving at either the Taoyuan International Airport or Taipei’s Songshan Airport on Friday.

The tourists will be divided into 25 groups and will be received by eight Taiwanese travel agencies.

Earlier, the bureau had announced that 600 Chinese tourists would be arriving this weekend, who would then be divided into six groups after landing at six different airports around the nation.

Shao Qiwei (邵琪偉), chairman of the Cross-Strait Travel Association, will arrive as planned, the bureau said.

The first flight is scheduled to arrive at Taoyuan from Guangzhou at 8:10am on Friday.

Meanwhile, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators said yesterday that chaos would ensue as the government was not ready for the inauguration of regular cross-strait charter flights.

DPP Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) told a press conference at the legislature that the government had not elaborated on security measures and epidemic control at airports for the cross-strait charter flights.

She said the government should open the country to Chinese tourists step by step, not in a rush.

She said that the government welcomes Chinese tourists while it ignores tourists from other countries, which is unfavorable to the tourism industry.

DPP Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) said the number of Taiwanese tourists to China is expected to increase to over 6 million per year soon after the inauguration of regular cross-strait charter flights.

Taiwanese tourist are expected to spend around NT$180 billion (US$6 billion) in China per year.

But because China will only allow 1,000 tourists to visit Taiwan per day, which analysts say will only bring in around NT$10 billion per year in revenue.

Following the disappearance of three Chinese tourists from their hotel in Jhongli, Taoyuan County, on Friday morning, Lin said the opening of Taiwan to Chinese tourists would open a channel to those Chinese who want to illegally immigrate to Taiwan.

Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation and its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, reached an agreement on cross-strait charter flights on June 13.
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