Taiwan's China Airlines charter flight 585 touches down at Shanghai's Pudong Airport on Friday, signalling the first charter flight across the Taiwan Straits for this year's Spring Festival.

     BEIJING, Jan. 21 -- Taiwan's China Airlines charter flight 585 touched down at Shanghai's Pudong Airport at 10:34 am on Friday, signalling the first charter flight across the Taiwan Straits for this year's Spring Festival.

    It left on the return trip 2 hours later and arrived at Taipei at 3:08 pm.

    This year's charter flights have been expanded to allow all Taiwanese with valid travel documents across the Straits to fly, whereas last year's charters were restricted to mainland-based Taiwan business people and their families.

    The non-stop charters are the closest thing to direct flights across the Straits, which Taiwanese authorities have banned since 1949. The planes technically must fly through Hong Kong or Macao air space.

    The flight had 310 passengers aboard, though China Airlines officials said they had expected about 200 for the first trip.

    "It's more convenient and faster to travel between Taiwan and the mainland," said the first passenger who got off the plane, surnamed Zhang. "The trip took me less than three hours."

    A businessman named Yang was impressed by the customs clearance at Pudong Airport.

    "It took me only seven minutes to pass through a special channel set for Taiwanese passengers," said Yang, who runs a factory in Kunshan, East China's Jiangsu Province.

    According to Dong Guoliang, the head of the mainland office of China Airlines, 12 charter flights are scheduled this year.

    The tickets for the first return charter flight were sold out, though the fare was raised because of an increase in the oil price and other factors.

    In Guangzhou, China Southern Airlines reports it's ready for this year's first non-stop Spring Festival chartered flight to Taiwan, scheduled for 10 am Wednesday.

    Tang Jing'an, who will be the captain of that first chartered flight, said: "All the crew members believe we will make smooth, safe and sound flights."

    The company has scheduled six flights to Taiwan and another six back to Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province.

    According to Si Xianmin, general manager of China Southern, the company will use Boeing 777s for the flights and on each flight there will be two veteran captains and one technician.

    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.

    (Source: China Daily)