A Boeing 747-400 plane with 236 passengers aboard flew non-stop across the Taiwan Straits after it took off from Taipei at 7 AM on Tuesday and touched down in Pudong Int'l Airport in Shanghai two hours and 50 minutes later.

It is the first of the 96 planned round-trip direct charter flights across the Taiwan Straits for this year's Spring Festival, the most important festival for people of Chinese origin and an occasion for reunions of family members, relatives and friends.

Tuesday's non-stop flight service across Taiwan Strait was run by Mandarin Airlines of Taiwan.

Among the passengers were Taiwan investors' relatives who traveled to Shanghai to join their beloved ones here, and some tourists organized by a local travel agency of Taiwan to Shanghai, according to a ground service worker with Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines.

The plane left Shanghai at 11:40 AM with 391 passengers aboard and will arrive in Taipei at about 3 PM.

UNI Air, another air company from Taiwan, will also operate a round-trip flight service between Kaohsiung and Guangzhou later on Tuesday.

Apart from major festivals such as Spring Festival, there is no direct air service across the Taiwan Strait. All air companies are required by the Taiwan authorities to fly to their target destinations on both sides of the Taiwan Strait via Hong Kong.

This year's direct charter flight service for Spring Festival is the fourth of the kind. The first such service was done in 2003.

One passenger aboard Tuesday's Shanghai-bound direct charter flight identified by his surname as Yang said it saved time by flying the direct charter flight to Shanghai and hoped that the non-stop charter flight service could be available on ordinary days, to say weekends, and be extended to more cities on the Chinese mainland so that he could visit more cities on the mainland.

The direct flight service across the Taiwan Strait during this year's Spring Festival will be operated by 12 air companies on the both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Apart from Shanghai and Guangzhou, the direct charter flight s will also be available to two more Chinese mainland cities of Beijing and Xiamen.

This year's Spring Festival will start on Feb. 18. And direct charter flight peak will occur Feb. 13-16 and Feb. 23-26.

(Xinhua News Agency February 14, 2007)