Taiwan Strait sees historic direct flights

Starting with China Southern Airlines, six planes from China touched down one after another at Taipei’s Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport, becoming the first Chinese planes to land on Taiwan’s soil since 1949, excluding hijacked aircraft.

Beijing considers Taiwan as part of its territory, and has repeatedly threatened to invade should Taiwan announce independence.

Taiwan has forbidden direct transport links with China since the Nationalists fled to the island in 1949 after losing the mainland to the communists in a civil war.

Emotions were high as the Chinese planes were landing.

Taipei had banned direct flights on security grounds and still insists the special charters fly through Hong Kong or Macau air space.

A Chinese pilot opened his cockpit window, smiled and waved after landing his China Southern Airlines plane, which took off from the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou and landed in Taiwan.

The flight carried 277 Taiwanese businesspeople and their families returning for the Lunar New Year — the biggest holiday on the Chinese calendar.

The nonstop Guangzhou-Taipei flight took about one and a half hours. Three other flights were making the four hour trip from Beijing, and two more were coming from Shanghai, a three-hour journey.

Wu Rongnan, the president of China’s Xiamen Airlines, which also flew to Taiwan, told reporters, “This is a happy day because we completed a journey of history, a journey of family affection.”

Traditional dragon dancers in orange-and-yellow costumes performed in biting dawn cold on the runway at Beijing’s airport.

In a diplomatic gesture, officials covered the red Chinese Communist flag on the fuselage of an Air China plane that took off from Beijing. The logo on the plane’s tail — a stylized red bird on a white backdrop — was repainted in black and white for the flight.

Only Taiwanese were allowed on the holiday charter flights, which last through Feb. 20.

Many of the travelers wore matching red vests and baseball hats autographed by the airline’s crew.

After they walked under an arch made of yellow and red balloons at Taipei’s airport, they were greeted by lawmakers, officials and a large group of TV cameramen.

The chartered flights, participated by both Taiwan and Chinese airlines, were part of a special arrangement made by Taipei and Beijing in order carry thousands of Taiwanese doing business in China home for the Lunar New Year holiday.

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An estimated one million of Taiwan’s people, or 5 percent of its population, work or live in China and must normally transit through places such as Hong Kong when travelling between the two sides, adding at least four hours to their journeys.

Although political relations are icy, business ties between the rivals have been booming. Bilateral trade between them in 2004 climbed to US$70 billion, a 34.2 percent increase from 2003.

The temporary charter services operated by Taiwan and Chinese airlines will ferry Taiwan business people and their families home for the Lunar New Year on Feb. 9, the biggest holiday in the Chinese world.

Passengers, many clutching commemorative gifts from the airlines such as postage stamps, flags and rice cakes, uniformly expressed hopes the charters could become permanent air links.

“This is an ice breaking flight,” said Tsai Chun-hung, owner of a plastics factory in China. “It saves us time and money.”

Jerry Chen, who together with his wife and four-year-old kid, flew back from Guangzhou on the first 80-minute China Southern flight, said: “I have never flown home so quickly.”

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