, which has been grounded for three years and has resumed flights on July 6, two regular charter routes including Shandong Airlines , Jinan-Hualian, Qingdao-Taichung, will be temporarily cancelled from August 24. The picture shows Shandong Airlines. ( China News Service )
The mainland ban on traveling to Taiwan has fermented! Shandong Airlines, which had been suspended for three years and had just resumed flights on July 6, will be cancelled from August 24 to October 26. The industry believes that this is due to the reduction in mainland passengers. A tourism operator named Lin from Taipei City said that Xiamen Airlines has recently announced the cancellation of the Kaohsiung flight to Quanzhou on the 21st. Industry insiders said that the number of free travel of mainland passengers and the number of mainland passenger groups will decrease, and the increase in the number of large aircraft replaced by small aircraft and cancelled flights will be significantly increased from this month.
, general manager of Shandong Airlines Taiwan, Zhao Yu, said that the company did not suspend flights, but only temporarily canceled flights on route 2, because the passenger loading rate was too low, with 167 seats per flight, but almost only 100 people boarding. He said that this flight season is currently cancelled, and whether to continue flying next season still needs to be evaluated, and all of them are currently continuing to contact Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration.
Hualien travel industry insiders were shocked when they heard the news. "We also clearly understand that this is a political factor." Wu Yongchang, chairman of the Hualien County Travel and Commercial Association, said that tourism operators have indeed been impacted and hope that the Taiwan authorities can continue to provide subsidies, including seeking subsidies for low-cost airlines in various places, because the journey from Taipei or Taoyuan to Hualien is really too far, and direct flight charter can increase travel willingness.
Tang Yushu, director of the Tourism Department of Hualien County Government, said that he has tried hard to not interrupt, but unfortunately, the ban issuance of this policy is really regrettable. She said that the people want livelihoods, and hopes that the Taiwan authorities can be more attentive in the economy and make the saying "politics belong to politics and tourism belong to tourism" truly implement.
"Recently, when tourism bureaus in mainland China held a meeting to discuss group tours to Taiwan, some would invite airline operators to attend." Lin said that taking Fujian Province as an example, when meeting with operators a few days ago, in addition to announcing the quotas for each group club from August to December this year, flights between Fujian and Taiwan were also mentioned. The operator said that there are currently 55 flights in Fujian and Taiwan each week, including , mainland Airlines, , 29 flights, and Taiwan Airlines, 26 flights. Although there is no discussion on the increase or decrease of flights during the meeting, it is expected that the reduction of passengers will be inevitable with the decrease of flights and even the stoppage of flights.
group operators in Xi'an said that due to the decrease in traveling groups and free travel, including Oriental and Hainan Airlines, they are currently considering reducing shifts or even grounding flights. Shijiazhuang also reported that it would review the cancellation of direct flights to Taiwan by Mainland Airlines.
Source: Taiwan "China Times"
Editor-in-chief: Qiu Mengying
