Air Transport

Taiwan's China Airlines and its subsidiary Mandarin Airlines have released the frequency of their scheduled cross-straits flights, which are likely to begin around 31 August.

These services are the result of a new agreement in April that allows scheduled flights for the first time between the two since 1949. The agreement increases the number of passenger flights each week between China and Taiwan to 270 from 108. Until now, there have been only charter flights between Taiwan and China.

CAL says that from Taipei, it will have nine weekly flights to Shanghai-Pudong, five weekly flights to Beijing, five weekly flights to Guangzhou, four weekly flights to Shenzhen, twice-weekly to Chengdu, and twice-weekly to Xian.

From Kaohsiung, it will have two weekly flights to Shanghai-Pudong and fly once a week to Shenzhen,

Mandarin Airlines will have daily flights from Taipei to Xiamen, twice weekly to Nanjing, twice weekly to Shenyang, twice weekly to Changsha, twice weekly to Zhengzhou, and thrice weekly to Ningbo.

From Taichung, it will have once weekly flights to Ningbo and twice weekly to Hangzhou, From Kaohsiung, it will fly to Ningbo once weekly and Hangzhou three times a week.

China Airlines says that with this new schedule, it is adding six new destinations - Xiamen, Ningbo, Zhengzhou, Shenyang, Changsha and Xian - to the seven that it already serves on the regular charter flights.

Together, CAL and Mandarin Airlines will serve 13 cities in the mainland once the scheduled flights begin. The airlines plan to operate Airbus A330-300, Boeing 747-400, Boeing 737-800, and Embraer E190 aircraft on the routes.

Both the Chinese and Taiwanese airlines are waiting for their respective civil aviation authorities to announce the start date for the services.