More Chinese carriers to fly to Taiwan

THE General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) is to allow nine Chinese airlines to operate 135 passenger flights and 14 cargo flights to Taiwan each week.

Air China Cargo (right) and China Southern Airlines will each be allowed to operate five regular freighter flights a week, while China Cargo Airlines will operate four a week.

More than 60 per cent of the passenger flights will be run by China’s three main airways – Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines.

China Eastern Airlines will operate the most with 29 weekly passenger flights from eight mainland destinations. Air China and China Southern Airlines will each operate 27 passenger flights a week.

Hainan Airlines and Shanghai Airlines will each run ten flights, Xiamen Airlines eleven flights, and Sichuan Airlines, Shandong Airlines and Shenzhen Airlines each will run seven flights.

Shenzhen Airlines has suggested that it may open an office in Taiwan in mid-August although it still needs permission to do so.

China Southern Airlines already has an office in Taipei, which opened on 15 January, the first mainland-based airway to do so. It was followed by Air China and China Eastern Airlines soon after.

China Airlines launched the first cross-straits cargo charter flight between Taiwan and the mainland late last year. As reported previously in Air Cargo News, this was the first direct traffic between the two since 1949. Previously, flights had to be routed via Hong Kong or Macau.