The number of Chinese tourist arrivals to Taiwan is likely to double to 600 per day following today’s opening of direct daily charter flight services between the two sides, research results by the Ministry of Transportation and Communication (MOTC) show.
As more direct routes will be adopted for the daily cross-strait charter flights starting today, passengers will be able to save on tickets and travel time, the MOTC said.
The daily charter services will connect Taiwan to 21 Chinese destinations, including Chengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Dalian, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Kunming, Qingdao, Haikou and Shenyang.
ADVANTAGE
Tour operators said the reduced travel time will be the greatest advantage of the new measures.
From today, a trip on the new Taipei-Shanghai route will take only 90 minutes — one hour less than before, when flights had to fly through Hong Kong airspace, tour operators said.
HELP
This will also help reduce the time of a flight between Taipei and Beijing to two hours and 50 minutes from the previous three hours and 35 minutes.
The number of two-way charter flights per week will rise from 36 to 108, officials said.
Some 90 percent of the passengers are Taiwanese businesspeople, so seats will be added to meet demands, they said.
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