Royal Brunei Airlines flew its inaugural chartered flight to the outlying island of Kinmen yesterday.
The flight touched down at Kinmen Airport at 7:10am, carrying almost 50 passengers from Brunei, who received a warm welcome from Kinmen Deputy Commissioner Huang I-kai (黃怡凱).
The plane later departed from the airport carrying 148 passengers, including Huang.
Photo: CNA
Thanks to efforts by the tourism industries of Kinmen and Brunei, Taiwanese expatriates in Brunei and Taiwan representative to Brunei Andrew Lee (李憲章), the Kinmen County Government announced in September the start of the Brunei Airlines charter service.
It hopes the flights will help boost the island’s international visibility and create more economic opportunities.
Lin Yung-piao (林永標), head of the Travel Agency Association of Kinmen, said the chartered flights are expected to increase exchanges between Kinmen and Brunei.
Huang said the flights represent a milestone for Kinmen County, as the number of tourists has decreased after China imposed a ban in August on independent Chinese tourists from 47 Chinese cities.
Kinmen is looking into other ways to increase tourism to mitigate the impact of the Chinese ban, he said.
The county will next target the Southeast Asian market by offering chartered flights, he added.
According to Kinmen’s Tourism Bureau, the county started its first chartered flight service between the island and Macau in September 2006, followed by services between the island and Singapore in December of that year.
In January 2008, a third chartered flight service was launched between Kinmen and Japan’s Hokkaido by Taiwan’s Mandarin Airlines, a subsidiary of China Airlines.
Royal Brunei Airlines restarted direct flights to Taiwan in December in 2018 after a 15-year hiatus.
The carrier currently operates three round-trip flights per week between Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Brunei International Airport, according to the airline’s Web site.
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