Officials at the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) were tight-lipped yesterday about the details of the cross-strait charter flights that will be discussed during next Monday’s meeting between Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yun-lin (陳雲林).
A report published in yesterday’s Chinese-language daily United Daily News said the Chiang-Chen meeting would confirm that cross-strait charter flights will be offered seven days a week. The weekly number of charter flights will expand from 18 to 110.
CAA Deputy Director General Lin Shinn-der (林信得), however, refused to confirm the details mentioned in the newspaper report, saying he did not know about them until he read the newspaper.
Lin was also discreet in his replies about new flight routes or new airports to be opened for cross-strait charter flights.
He said results generated through the meeting would enable Taiwanese and Chinese airlines to arrange flights in a more flexible way.
When asked if Taipei Songshan Airport had sufficient capacity to handle more charter flights, he said the administration was adjusting the timeslots of the airport.
Currently, the airport handles eight charter flights per day.
“The number [of charter flights] the airport can take could be doubled,” he said.
Meanwhile, Lin said that both sides had begun work on cross-strait certifications of airworthiness approval.
He said he hoped that this matter could be settled by the end of this year, adding that the details still needed to be confirmed by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC).
“We have advised MAC about the urgency of this issue,” he said.
Meanwhile, statistics from CAA showed that by Oct. 13, there had been a total of 270 cross-strait charter flights. On average, each charter flight had an occupancy rate of 85 percent.
A majority of charter flights heading to Taiwan land at Taoyuan and Songshan, whereas those heading to China land mostly in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.
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