During the fourth-round of cross-strait talks, Taipei and Beijing agreed that between Jan. 31 and Feb. 28, 2010 each side will launch 88 extra round-trip flights between Taiwan and Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the four destinations to which the number of direct flights is capped. No limit was set on extra flights to and from other mainland destinations.
CAA Director-General Lee Long-wen said the negotiation results were “not satisfactory but acceptable,” and he hopes to see more transportation capacity in 2010.
Under the cross-strait agreement, each week during the holiday season, Taiwanese airliners will offer an extra five round-trip flights to Beijing, eight to Shanghai, five to Guangzhou and four to Shenzhen. Their mainland counterparts will offer the same number of added flights serving the same routes.
Direct flights to Beijing will see the largest increase at 50 percent, followed by Shenzhen at 40 percent, Guangzhou at 35.7 percent and Shanghai at 28.6 percent, according to the CAA.
Taking into account the 496 regular round-trip flights between the island and the four mainland cities during the holiday period, a total of 672 round-trip flights with 403,200 seats will be available to transport passengers to these destinations.
Lee said the CAA will allocate the additional flights among local airliners by the end of this year, and does not exclude ticket fares as a consideration in making the allocation.
The two sides also agreed to include four new destinations in the direct route map, including Taiyuan, Changchun, Nanning and Yantai. With these additions, a total of 31 mainland cities can offer direct flight services to Taiwan.
Lee said if Beijing keeps adding new flight destinations on the mainland, “the total number of flights across the strait should be increased as well.”
At present, there are 270 regular round-trip cross-strait flights every week. Since both Taipei and Beijing believe it is necessary to increase the number of regular flights, the two sides will engage in negotiations as soon as possible, Lee said. (SFC-THN)

• Publication Date：12/28/2009
• Source： Taiwan – Today - Economic Daily News