Air China, China’s largest international carrier, plans to start scheduled flights to Taiwan as soon as services are allowed.

Board Secretary Huang Bin said, ‘We are fully prepared to operate regular direct flights.’

He declined to confirm or deny a report by the Commercial Times that the Beijing-based carrier plans to apply to open an office in Taiwan after the island’s new government is installed on May 20.
Taiwan President-Elect Ma Ying-jeou has pledged to end a five-decade ban on regular direct flights to China’s mainland as soon as he takes office. WHich will make life a lot easier for traveler’s who until now have had to travel by way of Hong Kong.

Airlines including Air China already fly occasional charter services across the Straits under a government policy allowing direct flights around Chinese holidays but, so far, there has been no regular service.

Our illustration shows Air China stewardesses preparing to present Beijing 2008 Olympics mascots to Taiwan passengers as souvenirs at Capital International Airport in Beijing, January 25, 2006. Air China’s first Spring Festival charter (as oopposed to regular) flight CA197 flew from Beijing to Taipei in southeast China’s Taiwan on January 25.
Source: The China Post

Taiwan President-elect Ma Ying-jeou (shown here) has tentatively set July 4 for launching weekend charter flights with the mainland as part of his plan to improve ties.

The National Policy Foundation, a think tank of Ma’s Nationalist Party or Kuomintang, said in a recent report that it had completed the direct weekend charter plan.

The service would begin taking passengers from the mainland for the weekend and carrying them back on Monday noon.

Chen Shih-yi, a foundation spokesman, said Ma had instructed that the service be started from July 4, and be extended to Chinese tourists coming to Taiwan for vacation after Beijing and Taipei work out an agreement.

Ma, a mainland-friendly politician who won a landslide victory in last month’s presidential election, has vowed to further open up the island to the mainland and forge direct transport link in 2009 after he assumes office on May 20.

Chen said Taiwan will open its international airports in Taoyuan in the north, Taichung in central Taiwan and Kaohsiung in the south for charter services. Flight points from the mainland will include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xiamen.
Source: TopNews.in

Leading business people in Taiwan have voiced the hope that the Taiwan authorities can realize ‘three direct links’ as soon as possible when Ma Ying-jeou, seen in the center of our illustration, takes office as the new leader of the region.

Ma, the candidate representing Taiwan’s Kuomintang who won the election, has promised to expand business ties and reinstate direct transport and postal links with the Chinese mainland.

The ‘three direct links’ refer to direct trade, transport and mail services across the Taiwan Straits.

Chi Mei Corporation President Ho Jau-yang said the Taiwan authorities should let enterprises in Taiwan embrace the business opportunities in the mainland. Chairman of the E United Group Lin I-Shou said Taiwan should let mainland tourists travel to Taiwan as soon as possible.
Source: China View

In Taiwan Ma Ying-jeou is the Kuomintang presidential candidate and it is a fair bet he will get the title at the end of May. Prior to that he has said that if elected he will set a timetable for regular cross-strait flights.

His plan is that weekend charter flights be introduced by July 1, with daily charter flights between the Mainland and Taiwan to be available by the end of this year. He said the goal is to open regular cross-strait direct flights by June 2009.

Ma Ying-jeou talked about his cross-strait flight agenda while being interview by representatives from Taiwan’s high-tech industry and venture capital sector.

He said he would start the negotiations over the direct flight issue as soon as he takes office on May 20. He said he would designate airports in Taoyuan, Taipei, Taichung, Kaohsiung, Hualien, Taitung, and Penghu as terminals for cross-strait flights.

He would also open seaports in Keelung, Taipei, Taichung, Kaohsiung, Hualien, Chiayi, and Tainan to direct shipping across the strait.

The opening of the direct cross-strait flights and transport links is meant to boost Taiwan’s tourism. To this end Ma Ying-jeou said he would also open Taiwan to tourists from the Mainland, with an initial daily quota of 3,000 people. The quota would be increased to 5,000 people the second year, 7,000 in the third, and 10,000 in the fourth.
Source: The China Post

The Rhapsody of the Seas has just sailed from Kaohsiung harbor and out towards Hong Kong. That fact is nothing out of the ordinary. Such cruise liners frequently stop at Taiwan’s biggest commercial port. What was unusual was the cruise carried an unprecedented boatload of mainland Chinese tourists

The authorities in Kaohsiung were the first to admit that the tour party, which numbered only 668, was not enormous, nor was its expected impact on the local economy. But it was symbolic of change: the beachhead in a lucrative capital invasion for which the business leaders of Taiwan have been preparing for years.

If, as expected, the KMT under Ma Ying-jiu regains the Taiwan presidency next month, then there is expected to be a speed-up of the opening of economic ties between Taiwan and the mainland. Mainland tourism into Taiwan will be one of the most significant events.

There is huge pent-up demand for mainlanders to visit the ‘Precious Isle’, and they increasingly have big money to spend on eating out, medical care, and general tourist pursuits.

This is desperately important for the airlines of Taiwan. There are four of them and they are all bleeding money.

Taiwan’s overcrowded air passenger market began showing severe signs of financial strain this week when Far Eastern Air Transport, the island’s largest domestic carrier, admitted that a US$4.8m cheque for fuel had bounced.

Although the company obtained a one-month extension for the payment, the incident suggests the island’s aviation industry, which has been losing money for years, is operating in unsustainable conditions.

The airlines are caught by the ban on air transport between Taiwan and the mainland.

If the restrictions were to be lifted the airlines would become profitable and the whole of the economy would receive a boost. That is why the 668 tourists on the Rhapsody of the Seas are so important.
Source: Times Online