China and Taiwan reach agreement for holiday charters

Airline Industry Information, Jan 17, 2005

AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION-(C)1997-2005 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

An agreement has been made between China and Taiwan that will see the first direct flights between the two sides in decades.

The deal, which was reached after a couple of hours on Saturday (15 January), has been seen as a potential tension-breaker as it has been agreed that 48 round-trip charter flights will be allowed to take Taiwanese working in China back to Taiwan for the Lunar New Year in early February. Under the terms of the agreement, six Chinese and six Taiwanese airlines will be operating the flights between 29 January and 20 February. The aircraft will fly from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in China and Taipei and Kaohsiung in Taiwan.

Taiwan banned direct flights from China in 1949 and the charter flights will be the first allowed since then. The ban was implemented because of security concerns. According to media reports, the flights from China to Taiwan will not be allowed to fly directly across, but will have to enter either Hong Kong or Macau airspace. They will however not have to land in a third territory, as previously.

Speculation has arisen as to which airlines may operate the flights and suggestions have been made that the Taiwanese airlines could include China Airlines Ltd, EVA Airways Corp, Trans Asia Airways, Far East Air Transport Corp, Mandarin Airlines and UNI Airways Corp while Air China Ltd, China Southern Airlines Co Ltd, Xiamen Airlines and China Eastern Air have been listed as possible candidates from China.

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