A mainland passenger jet is ready to take off from Xiamen, Fujian province for Taiwan in this January 25, 2006 photo. The flight was part of chartered flight arrangement during the Spring Festival. [newsphoto]

Aviation organizations in the Chinese mainland and Taiwan have agreed to launch regular passenger charter flights between the island and the mainland during major holidays of the year, it was announced on Wednesday.

General Administration of Civil Aviation (CAAC) announced on Wednesday that the mainland-based Cross-Straits Aviation Transport Exchange Council and the Taipei Airlines Association have reached a consensus on the framework of chartered flights for festivals and special cases.

The festival chartered flights will be opened during the 14 days around the Spring Festival, and the seven days around the other three festivals, according to the agreement. According to the arrangements, direct chartered flights will be arranged during the Qingming Festival (a day for remembering the deceased), the Dragon Boat festival (the fifth day of the fifth month on the lunar calendar), the Mid-Autumn Festival (15th day of the eighth month on the lunar calendar) and the Spring Festival.

Each side will undertake 84 round flights, including 48 during the Spring Festival, according to the agreement.

The destinations of the chartered flights include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xiamen on the mainland, and Taipei and Kaohsiung in Taiwan. All Taiwan residents, businessmen and their relatives with valid certificates can take the flights.

Six airline companies on each side will carry out the chartered flights. Specific arrangements will follow the operation of the Spring Festival chartered flights in 2006, the agreement said.

The two sides have held talks on the flights over the past year through private airline representatives. They have also reached a "tentative consensus" on launching regular cargo charter flights but have yet to agree on details.

A spokesman from the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council welcomed the flight arrangement, and hoped direct flights will be finally agreed upon so as to better serve people of the two sides. 

Direct air links have become an urgent issue facing the cross-Straits exchanges with the development of economic and trade relations between the two sides, said the spokesman.

It is the demand of millions of Taiwan compatriots who come to the mainland every year for business, visiting relatives and travel. It's also the demand of Taiwan farmers who want to lower transportation cost of selling their fruits and vegetables to the mainland, the spokesman said.

When meeting with Lien Chan, then head of the Kuomintang (KMT) party, and James CY Soong, chairman of the People First Party (PFP), in 2005, Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, expressed the mainland's consistent standpoint to push forward two-way and comprehensive "three direct links" in mail, transport and trade across the Straits, he added.

"We welcome any progress in promoting direct, two-way and comprehensive links across the Taiwan Straits, which is of the interests of the Chinese compatriots on both sides," Pu Zhaozhou, director of the Cross-Straits Aviation Transport Exchange Council, said Wednesday.

"Our sincerity to promote direct air links between the mainland and Taiwan has never changed," Pu said.

The new agreement, however, still cannot meet the demand on direct transportation links from the compatriots on both sides, he added.

"We hope the Taiwan authorities can allow the airlines on both sides to make arrangements for weekend and regular chartered flights as early as possible to satisfy the compatriots' demand," he urged.

The mainland had called for regular passenger flights between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits to faciliate travels of Taiwanese people working and studying in the mainland.

But Taipei has banned direct transportation links with the mainland since the sides split amid civil war in 1949, citing security concerns. Passengers traveling to the mainland have to fly through a third point, usually Hong Kong.

Taipei has come under tremendous pressure to launch direct air links, as an estimated 3 million Taiwanese travel to the mainland each year for business or sightseeing. Under pressure from the Taiwanese and after talks between the two sides, direct chartered passenger flights were arranged during the traditional festivals, as Spring Festival, but Taipei authorities requested such flights to fly over Hong Kong before they could arrive in the mainland or in the island. 

Taiwan also hopes to attract mainland tourists to the island, but the trips would not be appealing because the indirect flights add extra time and expense.