The chartered flights across the Taiwan Straits, specially launched for Taiwan business people working or living on the Chinese mainland during the Spring Festival, or Chinese lunar new year, concluded in Shanghai Sunday night.

The last of the flights, Flight CI 585 of Taiwan's China Airlines, landed at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport at 11:14 pm Sunday, with 222 passengers on board.

Beginning Jan. 26, with the approval of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, six Taiwan-based airlines ran 16 cross-Straits chartered flights between Taipei, Kaohsiung and Shanghai.

A total of 1,293 Taiwan business people and their families went home for family reunions during the Spring Festival on the leaving flights, and 1,261 people have returned to Shanghai after the weeklong vacation.

This was the first time since 1949 that Taiwanese civil aviation airplanes were allowed to fly to the Chinese mainland. The flights assumed significance as they were widely regarded as a prelude to a direct air link across the Taiwan Straits.

However, due to restrictions from the Taiwan authorities, the flights had to make stopovers in Hong Kong or Macao on their way to Shanghai or returning trips, and no airlines from the Chinese mainland were involved.

Still, the mainland airlines, especially the Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines, gave all-out support to their counterparts from Taiwan, providing a first-class ground service and offering all necessary flight data. The Taiwanese airlines had expressed their appreciation of all the assistance they had received.

Sources with the Shanghai airport said that the China Airlines plane was scheduled to leave Shanghai for Taiwan shortly after midnight. It would be carrying no passengers.

(Xinhua News Agency February 10, 2003)