A senior Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) official said yesterday there is no need to hold government-to-government talks on a proposed plan to allow charter flights between Taiwan and Shanghai.
"Since technical details of the charter flights have nothing to do with public authorities, its not necessary for both sides to sit down and talk," Lee Lung-wen (
Lee made the comments yesterday in response to a China Daily report that calls on Taiwan to authorize private groups to begin talks with their Chinese counterparts on the proposed charter flights.
On Wednesday, the government approved a plan that allows Taiwanese carriers to apply to run charter flights to China to shuttle Taiwanese businesspeople who live and work in China back home during the Lunar New Year holidays between Jan. 26 and Feb. 10.
"Time is pressing and we hope China will give the go-ahead as soon as possible to allow Taiwanese carriers sufficient time to prepare," Lee said.
An unidentified official was quoted in the China Daily report as saying China's Civil Aviation Administration of China wanted Taiwan to sit down and hash out the technical details of Taiwanese carriers operating the chartered flights.
Chartered services differ from regularly scheduled flights in that they are confined to specifically designated locations, times and passengers. But one industry watcher said politicians sooner or later will have to step up to the plate.
"After all, chartered flights still involve security, technical and sovereignty issues related to direct flights," said Hermes Yang (
"The two [sides] are bound to meet and discuss the technical details before Taiwanese planes take off. That includes which routes the carriers can fly, what airports they can land at, how many flights they can run -- and perhaps most importantly, how they identify themselves -- flights from the Republic of China or from Taiwan Province," Yang said.
Another complication that may arise in any talks would be the issue of reciprocal flights in the near future.
"The [money-making] potential of chartered flights between the two is big business and Chinese carriers are therefore very likely to put pressure on Beijing to share a slice of that market in the future," Yang said.
If Chinese carriers want to fly charter flights to Taiwan, that raises a whole new set of headaches for authorities as well, Yang said.
Meanwhile airline representatives backed away from resolving technical issues surrounding the charter proposal.
"We can only fly and coordinate with our Chinese partners on ground handling, such as mechanics services, baggage handling, check-in counter processing, food service and other ground services," said Joseph Wu (
Wu added that the proposed charter flights are not going to be a financial boon for the carrier, but "nobody would want to be absent from the game."
Other carriers such as EVA Airways Corp (
"We think the negotiations should be up to the [Taiwan's] Straits Exchange Foundation [SEF] and China's Association of Relations Across the Taiwan Strait [ARATS] to settle," said Alex Shih (施建華), spokesman for Far East Air.
But any resumption of talks between the SEF and ARATS would be difficult at present, according to Chan Ching-chih (詹清池), a close aid to KMT Legislator John Chang (章孝嚴).
Chang was the impetus behind the charter flight proposal, while Chan suggested the related industry associations on both sides should be able to handle negotiations without the help of bureaucrats.
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