1st weekend chartered flight arrives in Taiwan

TAIPEI, July 4 (Xinhua) -- The first cross-Strait weekend charter flight from China's mainland to Taiwan landed at Taipei Taoyuan airport early Friday morning.

The historic flight, which took off at 6:31 a.m. from Guangzhou, capital city of China's southern Guangdong Province, arrived at about 8:10 a.m. after a 1,124-km journey.

More than 100 mainland tourists aboard the Airbus A330 of China Southern Airlines (CSA) became the first group of people on a sight-seeing tour allowed to Taiwan amid warming cross-Strait ties.

Another four weekend chartered flights also took off Friday morning from Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Xiamen respectively.

Flight MF881 from Xiamen of southeastern China's Fujian Province, taking off at 7:16 a.m., has arrived at the Songshan Airport in Taipei.

A total of 760 mainland tourists across the mainland are on the unprecedented journey to Taiwan and will stay there for 10 days.

In Beijing, a ceremony was held in the morning for the launching of the cross-Strait weekend charter flights as well as the mainland tourists visiting Taiwan.

Wang Yi, director of both the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, said that Friday marked a new beginning in the history of cross-Strait exchanges.

Cross-Strait relations are facing a hard-won development opportunity, and direct contacts between the compatriots on both sides must be beefed up to enhance their mutual understanding and achieve new progress in the peaceful development of cross-Strait ties, he said.

Frequent travelers like him had witnessed charter flights across the Strait expand from one major festival to four and then every weekend, Friday to Monday, since 2003.

But all of the weekend planes still flew across the Strait by way of Hong Kong airspace.

"There is no technical difficulty to launching real direct flights across the Strait," said Yang Guoqing, deputy head of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) at the ceremony in Beijing. "I believe the two sides could produce a direct flight route and more terminals once we talk with each other in an equal and down-to-earth manner with goodwill and understanding."

At the June meeting between the mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), the two sides agreed to start discussing the direct flight issue "as soon as possible."

A total of 760 mainland tourists from the mainland are also on the unprecedented journey to Taiwan and will stay for 10 days.

"Today is a happy and memorable day. I hope it will be a good beginning for tourism across the Strait," said Shao Qiwei, chairman of the Cross-Strait Tourism Communication Association (CSTCA) and director of the National Tourism Administration, who led a delegation to Taiwan and took the weekend flight from Beijing on Friday.

"I have been expecting to visit Taiwan, the Treasure Island, and my dream will finally come true today," mainland tourist Shi Anwei told Xinhua before boarding the plane in Guangzhou. "I was too excited to sleep last night."

"I have lots of friends in the mainland and always tell them I will give them the best treatment when they visit Taiwan. Now I can fulfill my promise," said famed Taiwan singer Chow Wah-kin at the Beijing International Airport. "I have wasted too much of my life in transfers."

Wang Yi, director of both the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council'sTaiwan Affairs Office, said that the day marked a new beginning incross-Strait exchanges.

Cross-Strait relations have been presented with a hard-won development opportunity, and direct contacts between compatriots on both sides must be beefed up to enhance their mutual understanding and achieve new progress in the peaceful developmentof cross-Strait ties, he said.