Thu, Jul 03, 2008 page2

• CROSS-STRAIT FLIGHTS: REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: Charter flights prove headache for officials

  • By Shelley Shan
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  Tom Huang (黃明智) is an engineer who works for a manufacturing firm in Taiwan. Every six months or so he is assigned to provide on-site technical support at his company’s operations in Suzhou and Changan, China.

  “For those of us who have to travel to China frequently, cross-strait charter flights are certainly a welcome development,” he said.

  Optimism from the business sector notwithstanding, the chaos sparked by the charter flights over the past two weeks has made some wonder whether they will be able to continue after the first week.

  Although the government selected eight airports for the flights, both Taiwanese and Chinese airlines only showed interest in Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Taipei Songshan Airport. None wanted wanted Kaohsiung.

  After a complaint from Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), however, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) asked Uni Air for one round-trip flight between Kaohsiung and Guangzhou tomorrow.

  TransAsia Airways would probably not have considered flying to the east coast if it were not for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Fu Kun-chi’s (傅崑萁) willingness to pay for a charter flight between Hualien and Xiamen.

  The Taichung City Government also managed to have a Mandarin Airlines flight leave from Chingchuankang Airport to Xiamen, although the return flight will land at Magong in Penghu County.

  The airlines’ lack of interest in the smaller airports was not the only issue facing the CAA. It was not able to finalize the flight schedules until this week because nearly all the Chinese airlines wanted to have at least one flight land at Songshan.

  Songshan’s unexpected popularity has forced the CAA to tweak the airport’s time slots and to try to reduce the intervals between two arriving flights and between two departing flights from two hours to one-and-a-half hours.

  Nanjing became one of the cross-strait charter flight airports after KMT Chairman Wu Po-hsiung (吳伯雄) visited China in May, and Mandarin Airlines had planned a 3:30am charter flight from Taoyuan to Nanjing tomorrow. But on Monday the airline was forced to cancel the flight because it had failed to attract enough passengers.

  Taiwan’s Taiwan Strait Tourism and Travel Association had asked China’s Cross-Strait Travel Association to have the six inaugural tour groups land at six different airports tomorrow, which was yet another challenge for the CAA.

  However, all of tomorrow’s flights from China will now land at either Taoyuan or Songshan.

  The final product of this chaotic process is a flight schedule determined mostly by politics rather than market mechanisms.

  The hectic preparations have also made the Ministry of Transportation and Communications a target of lawmakers’ criticism.

  KMT Legislator Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) said on Monday that planning on having eight airports opened in the initial stage had been wrong.

  “Officials were afraid to speak the truth, even though they were not ready for such a plan,” he said.

  KMT Legislator Justin Huang (黃健庭), who representing districts in Taitung, also accused the CAA of not doing enough to help local governments secure charter flights.

  Earlier this week Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said the KMT government was “overly optimistic” about the cross-strait charter flight service and should have evaluated market demand before it decided to open up certain airports.

  Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said the charter flights were different from regular flights and could not be arranged by the government.

  “Because these are inaugural flights, the government simply let them [the Chinese government] know our hope that the tourists could land at different airports,” he said.

  The cross-strait charter flight service will also return Taipei Songshan Airport to its days as an international airport and gateway to the nation. But this has led to complaints that Songshan’s facilities are not up to the job.

  The CAA completed its first-stage renovations of Taipei Songshan Airport on Monday

  Mao said the ministry was considering reserving the airport’s first terminal for cross-strait passengers and the second terminal for domestic passengers.

  Meanwhile, several people have expressed concern about the security of a section of the corridor to the custom, immigration and quarantine area at Songshan and fear the section could provide easy access to the domestic flight area to Chinese tourists.

  Mao, however, said the problem could be resolved by setting up a cordon and adding extra security guards.
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