The first cross-Strait weekend chartered flight from China's mainland to
Taiwan took off at 6:31 am from Guangzhou, capital city of the southern
Guangdong Province early this morning.
More than 100 mainland tourists aboard the Airbus A330 became the first group
of people on a sight-seeing tour allowed to Taiwan amid warming cross-Strait
ties. The flight has 258 passengers.
The historic flight by China Southern Airlines (CSA) is scheduled to land at
Taipei Taoyuan Airport in Taiwan at 8:10 am after a 1,124-km journey.
"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. "I was too excited to sleep last night."
At a separate ceremony in East China's Nanjing City marking the city as the
fifth new city to conduct the cross-Strait chartered flight, Zheng Lizhong,
mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS)
Executive Vice Chairman, said the start of the weekend chartered flight and
beginning of the mainland tourists' visit to Taiwan "is destined to open a new
chapter in the cross-Straits cultural and economic communications."
A high-ranking mainland aviation official said that since Shanghai was chosen
as the first city for cross-Strait flight operation five years ago, "there has
been a small step each year, but they have amounted to a major step in past five
years."
"The ever more frequent and convenient flights across the Straits are not
only improved means of transportation, they are also an emotional and cultural
bridge for the people, and changed the way of thinking of both sides," the
official said.