No airlines have submitted applications to the government to charter additional passenger flights from China over the Lunar New Year holiday, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday.
Under a program launched on Jan. 8, the government began accepting applications from carriers seeking to charter flights from 13 Chinese cities between Jan. 31 and Feb. 20 to meet an expected rise in travel demand over the Lunar New Year holiday, Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Yen-po (陳彥伯) said at a news conference after the weekly Cabinet meeting.
To date, no airlines have applied to schedule additional flights under the program, he said.
Photo courtesy of the Executive Yuan
Chen said that aside from the charter option, numerous regular direct flights are already offered between Taiwan and China.
As of last month, 290 flights carrying about 82,000 passengers per week were operating between Taiwan and China, with an average seat occupancy rate of 54.5 percent, Chen said.
Although tourism links between Taiwan and China have been largely frozen for the past three years, there were more than 300,000 Taiwanese working in China as of 2021, many of whom come back to visit family over the Lunar New Year holiday.
The Chinese government halted independent travel to Taiwan on Aug. 1, 2019, citing the poor state of cross-strait relations. It then suspended group travel in 2020. Both rules remain in effect.
Taiwan halted group travel to China at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and is yet to lift its restrictions on most travelers from China.
The ministry in November last year said that the government was planning to ease the restrictions on Taiwanese tour groups traveling to China, and Chinese tour groups coming to Taiwan, possibly starting in March.
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