The airline will be the first of six Taiwanese airlines to fly indirect chartered passenger planes between the island and Shanghai's Pudong International Airport.

Flight CI585, on a Boeing 747-400 aircraft, is scheduled to take off from Taipei at 0420 on January 26 and arrive at Pudong airport at 0900.

Then it will leave Shanghai at 1100 and return to Taiwan at 1540 via Hong Kong, said Chen Yimin, a spokesman with China Eastern Airlines.

The expected journey time of 4 hours and 40 minutes is about 2 hours less than the normal flights, Chen said.

Jiang Yao, a spokeswoman with the East China Air Traffic Administration affiliated with the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China, said: "It will be one of the 40 chartered flights operated by Taiwanese airlines during the forthcoming Spring Festival holidays, which will fall around February 1."

The other five Taiwanese airlines that will operate the chartered plane services are Far Eastern Air, Mandarin Airlines, EVA Airways, Transasia Airways and UNI Airways.

It will be the first time in more than 50 years that Taiwanese airlines will have joined their mainland counterparts to transport passengers during the Spring Festival.

According to the Shanghai Taiwan Affairs Office, more than 1,000 Taiwan compatriots living in the city and nearby provinces have phoned to book a place on the chartered planes.

"By yesterday (Thursday), the second day for selling tickets, more than 250 people had got tickets. More tickets will be sold at the weekend," said Chen Zumin, an official at the office.

(China Daily January 10, 2003)