Holiday charter plane leaves Shanghai for Taipei
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-09-30 22:32
SHANGHAI -- An Airbus 330-300 left Shanghai for Taipei Saturday, carrying 278
passengers bound to China's island province of Taiwan to celebrate the
Mid-Autumn Festival which is about a week away.
The charter flight took off from Shanghai's Pudong International Airport at
9:30 a.m. and was scheduled to arrive in Taipei at 12:30 a.m., said a
spokesperson of Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines, the operator of the
charter flight service.
Most of the passengers were Taiwan businessmen working on the mainland and
were flying home to celebrate the traditional Chinese holiday for family
reunion, he said.
The airline company has also prepared a special gift for each passenger: a
pack of mooncakes, the traditional dim sum that resembles the full moon in shape
and is eaten on Mid-Autumn Festival when the whole family get together to enjoy
the full moon.
The holiday falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. This year it
will be celebrated on October 6, toward the end of the week-long National Day
holidays.
The return flight will leave Taipei on October 7.
The first Mid-Autumn Festival charter flight across the Taiwan Straits, an
Eva Airways' flight, arrived in Shanghai from Taipei at 13:25 Friday. It marks
the extension of the cross-Strait charter flight service, which was formerly
restricted to the Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year.
Six airlines from each side of the Taiwan Straits will operate 24 round-trip
flights between Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xiamen and Taipei from September
29 to October 8.
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