While the government has decided to open eight airports to cross-strait charter flights, domestic airlines seem only to be interested in flights departing from Taipei, Taoyuan and Kaohsiung.
Based on the agreement the Straits Exchange Foundation and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait reached last week, Taiwan agreed to open the airports in Taoyuan, Kaohsiung, Taipei, Penghu, Hualien, Kinmen and Taitung to cross-strait charter flights.
A total of 36 round-trip charter flights will initially be offered between China and Taiwan from Friday to Monday, with each side offering 18 round-trip flights during these four days.
The number of round-trip flights departing from airports in Taiwan to Shanghai has been capped at nine.
The limit for round-trip flights from China to Taichung has been set at six flights.
The number 18 was derived from the six domestic airlines in Taiwan being allocated three round-trip flights to China each. After Far Eastern Air Transport Corp (FAT, 遠東航空) was disqualified because of its financial problems, its flights were redistributed between the remaining five airlines — China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空), Mandarin Airlines (華信航空), EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), UNI Airways Corp (立榮航空) and TransAsia Airways (復興航空).
In a meeting on Monday night, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) decided to settle the redistribution with a drawing of lots.
The result was that Mandarin, TransAsia and UNI Airways will be able to fly four round-trip charter flights on the first weekend of next month, whereas CAL and EVA are left with three each.
With a total of seven flights at their disposal, CAL and Mandarin Airlines are planning to have three flights between Taoyuan and Shanghai, two between Taoyuan and Beijing, and one between Taoyuan and Guangzhou. They have yet to decide what to do with the remaining flight.
EVA and UNI Airways also have seven flights. They said yesterday that they had chosen Taoyuan, Taipei and Kaohsiung to dispatch charter flights to Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.
They said they were still considering how to arrange the flights.
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