The Chinese mainland is considering opening six more airports to
non-stop charter flights across the Taiwan Straits to cope with
rising passenger traffic, a senior civil aviation official has
said.
Currently, the mainland operates flights from Beijing, Shanghai,
Guangzhou and Xiamen to Taipei and Kaohsiung in Taiwan.
The new airports would be Chengdu, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shenzhen,
Dalian and Guilin.
Gao Hongfeng, deputy director of the General Administration of
Civil Aviation of China (CAAC), said that airports in another seven
cities -- Tianjin, Fuzhou, Chongqing, Zhuhai, Shenyang, Qingdao and
Guiyang -- would be designated as alternate airports for emergency
landings.
The deputy director told Shanghai-based China Business
News that Taiwan airlines operating cross-straits charter
flights are authorized to establish an organization or a
representative office in cities where cross-straits charter flight
services are available.
He said the CAAC would help if Taiwanese airplanes -- for
weather or aircraft reasons -- needed to make an emergency landing
at mainland airports open to charter flight services.
The CAAC said that Taiwan companies are encouraged to establish
joint ventures on the mainland to run airlines, build airports or
produce articles used on aircraft.
They were also encouraged to expand cooperation with mainland
counterparts in aircraft maintenance, cargo storage, market
development, code sharing and purchase of flight supplies.
Aviation organizations on the Chinese mainland and Taiwan
launched first non-stop charter flights across the Taiwan Straits
for the Chinese Lunar New Year in 2005, the first direct
cross-straits air flights in more than five decades.
They agreed to expand the services to other traditional Chinese festivals last year. But
regular charter flights across the Straits have still not been
realized.
During this year's Qingming Festival or Tomb Sweeping Festival
which fell on April 5, mainland and Taiwanese airlines operated 42
charter flights, carrying 7,000 passengers in total.
(Xinhua News Agency May 3, 2007)