Spring Festival chartered flights start
By Li Luxia/Zhan Lisheng (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-01-21 07:00

Si said entertaining performances will be given during the flights, some of them in the local Taiwanese dialect.

Ground services will range from signs and guidance at Guangzhou's Baiyun Airport, to one-stop services of check-in, luggage consignment and boarding.

This is the third time Spring Festival charter flights have been arranged across the Straits.

Six airlines from each side will operate 72 flights between Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Xiamen on the mainland and Taipei and Kaohsiung, Taiwan, until February 13.

In all there will be 72 round-trip flights this year, compared with 48 last year.

More than 300,000 Taiwanese working, studying or living on the mainland go back to the island during Spring Festival.

Industry sources say they expect the number of passengers who choose the charter flights this year to be 50 per cent higher than last year.

Figures provided by the Taiwan Affairs Office under the State Council show that more than 4.3 million residents from Taiwan visited the mainland between January and November last year.

There are about 300,000 Taiwanese living in Shanghai alone.

If the "three direct links" in trade, postal and transport services were established, passenger flow between Taiwan and the mainland would reach 5 million a year, which would bring in 5 billion yuan (US$625 million) in revenue for airlines, Air China President Li Jiaxiang said earlier.

Xinhua and agencies contributed to this story

(China Daily 01/21/2006 page1)