Two of the nation’s airlines are to increase the number of daily flights to Kinmen because of an increase in travelers to China using the three mini-links (小三通).
Tickets for cross-strait flights are in high demand and are relatively more expensive than flights to China via Hong Kong, Macau or other transit airports.
Some, particularly those living in the Central and Southern Taiwan, choose to travel via the three mini links, where they can board a flight to Kinmen or Matsu from regional airports rather than having to go to Taoyuan or Songshan.
PHOTO: CNA
Once they arrive in Kinmen or Matsu, travelers take the ferry to Xiamen or Mawei in China and transfer to other cities. More Chinese tourists are coming via the three mini links as well.
Airlines have worked with shipping companies to allow passengers to travel all the way from Taiwan to Kinmen or Matsu with one ticket. On average, tickets for the package deal cost NT$3,000 less than those for direct flights.
Uni Air (立榮航空) has daily flights to Kinmen from Taipei, Taichung, Chiayi, Kaohsiung and Tainan. It plans to increase flights or to use larger aircraft for services to Kinmen in June, with an estimated increase in the number of seats of 27 percent.
Mandarin Airlines (華信航空) also has daily flights to Kinmen from Taipei and Taichung. Starting next month, it will add flights to the schedule, depending on demand.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications said the number of travelers taking the three mini-links, including Taiwanese and Chinese, has increased from 21,377 in 2001 to 923,192 last year.
The ministry said yesterday that those using the three mini-links in Kinmen would be able to have their luggage checked-in all the way from Taiwan to Xiamen by the end of next month.
Passengers will be given receipts after they check in their luggage in Taiwan. When the baggage arrives in Kinmen, the airlines’ ground staff or local agents will transport the luggage in trucks to the dock after inspection by customs. The shipping firms will then take the luggage and put it on the ferry.
Travelers will claim their bags in Kinmen. The ministry said the measure would only apply to those traveling from Taiwan to Kinmen. Those returning from Kinmen to Taiwan, however, will still have to bring their luggage with them on the ferry and then check it in again at Kinmen Airport because the dock handling the luggage of returning travelers is still under construction.
Meanwhile, Taihwa Lun (台華輪), a shipping service partly subsidized by the government to carry passengers between Kaohsiung and Makung (馬公) in Penghu County, embarked on its first trip from Kaohsiung to Xiamen yesterday.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS