On the morning of January 29, Shanghai Airline(SAL) FM807, with 260 passenger on board, and China Eastern Airlines (CEA) MU579, carrying 322 passengers, lifted off from the runaway at Shanghai Pudong International Airport bound for Taipei international airport.

They were among the 48 round-trip charter flights between China¡¯s Taiwan Province and its mainland cities Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou immediately prior to the Chinese Spring Festival, which may signal the possibility of direct flights and even permanent air links across the Straits.

Air China charter flight CA1087, which departed from the Beijing Capital Airport at 8 am for Taipei, was the first mainland jet to take off. Some 88 passengers aboard the plane were all Taiwan business people and their families homebound for traditional family reunions during the upcoming Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year.

But, charter flight CZ3097 of China Southern Airlines with 242 passengers aboard, which left Guangzhou at almost the same time as the Air China flight, was the first mainland aircraft to land in Taiwan after a 90-minute journey.

This was the first time in 55 years that a Chinese jetliner had landed in Taiwan Province.

Under the cross-Straits agreement for Spring Festival travel, six mainland and six Taiwanese airlines will operate the 48 round-trip charter flights.

The domestic airlines are Air China, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Hainan Airlines, and Xiamen Airlines.

Waved off

Before their first flights to Taiwan took off, SAL and CEA hosted a ceremony to celebrate the historic flights.

On behalf of 13 million Shanghai citizens, Vice-Mayor Tang Dengjie extended his warm greetings to the people in Taiwan Province.

Tang noted that launching such non-stop flights was beneficial to the Taiwan people and will promote close business ties between Taiwan and Shanghai.

Tang also revealed that the number of exchanges between Shanghai and Taiwan has increased greatly in recent years.

In 2004 alone, the number of people from Taiwan Province who entered and departed from Shanghai reached 1.32 million.

More than 300,000 people from Taiwan live in Shanghai and its surrounding areas.

Taiwan business people funded 373 projects in Shanghai in 2004. The total number of Taiwanese-funded projects in Shanghai was 5,440 by the end of 2004.

Hector Yeh, president of the Association of Shanghai Taiwan Businessmen Invested Enterprises expressed excitement about the success of the charter flights.

Yeh said: ¡°We Taiwan businessmen in Shanghai have yearned for such flights for a long time. Today we can take non-stop flights from Shanghai to Taipei. That is so wonderful.?

Yeh noted that the cross-straits flights save every passenger at least 10,000 New Taiwan dollars (US$302).

¡°Saving money is only one minor advantage of such non-stop flights. Above all, this helps us to save a lot of energy and offers a greater sense of security,?he said.

Previously, without such flights, all Taiwanese passengers had to travel through Hong Kong, where they would transfer to a mainland-bound airline.

Many passengers found the inaugural non-stop flights more convenient and expressed their wish for regular direct flights between Shanghai and Taipei.

The distance from Shanghai to Taipei through Hong Kong and Macao air space is 2,600-plus kilometres, but the direct flight distance between Shanghai and Taipei is only a little over 600 kilometres.

It took the charter flights departing from Shanghai last weekend just over an hour to reach Taipei.