2010-06-21 21:01

XIAMEN - The Chinese mainland's aviation authorities are pushing to open an air route cutting straight across the Taiwan Strait, the shortest, and most controversial, route linking the mainland and Taiwan, officials said.

"The mainland's civil aviation administration is actively negotiating with its Taiwanese counterparts to open an air route from Fujian province directly to Taiwan, the shortest-ever cross-Strait route with an estimated air travel time of 30 minutes," Pu Zhaozhou, director of the administration's Cross-Straits Aviation Transport Exchange Council, told Xinhua on Monday.

The new route would relieve air traffic congestion, reduce travel time and lower operational costs, Pu said.

Current mainland-Taiwan routes cross the sea from either north or south of the Taiwan Strait, bypassing the coastline of Fujian, the closest mainland province to Taiwan. Some Taiwanese fear opening the route from Fujian might put Taiwan in danger of military attacks.

Such worries were brushed off by mainland officials.

"It is ridiculous that some people fear war planes would follow passenger planes to enter Taiwan. If they learn aviation basics, they would know it is impossible," mainland civil aviation administration director Li Jiaxiang told an audience attending the on-going Straits Forum in Xiamen city located in southern Fujian.

"We would push for direct Xiamen-Taiwan routes. Taiwanese told me they spent one and a half to three hours to get here from Taiwan. If the routes are open, they need only half an hour," Li said. "The cross-Strait exchanges improved a lot in recent years, but obstacles still exist in some people's minds," he added.

Pu said while the mainland is pushing for the deal, there has not yet been major progress in the talks.

The mainland civil aviation administration officials unveiled seven policies to accelerate the development of mainland-Taiwan air links on Sunday. The prime policy calls for increasing 20 flights connecting Xiamen, Fuzhou with Taiwan cities in a bid to build a "fast air link" network in the region.

Tang Yonghong, an economist with the Taiwan Research Institute of Xiamen University, said that policy translates into one flight per hour from Xiamen or Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian, to Taiwan.

"Once the network is set up, people can live in Taiwan while working in Xiamen. They can catch dinner time with the family in Taipei," he said.

But that prospect, Tang said, depends upon the opening of direct air routes from Fujian to Taiwan.

For decades, travelers had to transfer at a third airport to travel across the Taiwan Strait by air. In 2003, the two sides agreed to operate charter flights during the Spring Festival -- the Chinese equivalent of Christmas.

Regular direct flights across the Taiwan Strait have been available since August 2008 when Taiwanese authorities lifted a partial ban on mainland tourists visiting the island.

As of May 2010, about 3.6 million passengers and 93,000 tons of cargo have traveled across the Strait by regular direct flights. Further, cross-Strait flights now land in 33 destinations.

Airlines from both the Chinese mainland and Taiwan have announced they would slash cross-Strait airfares by 10 to 15 percent, Li announced on Sunday, amid expectations that the number of mainlanders traveling to Taiwan this year will surge to one million.