Weekend charter flights ready to take off

Chinese mainland airlines say they are ready for cross-straits weekend chartered flights to begin next week. Sun Wei has the story.

Fan Liqing, spokeswoman from the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, says the first flight will take off from Nanjing airport on July 4th.

Fan says since the cross-straits charter flight agreement came into effect, mainland aviation and tourism authorities have been busy preparing.

Six domestic airlines have completed flight allocations for the weekly cross-straits flights. The mainland aviation authority announced flight allocations on June 16th.

Air China, together with Eastern Airlines and Southern Airlines, will operate four round-trip flights a week on average. Hainan Airlines, Shanghai Airlines and Xiamen Airlines will operate two round-trip flights.

The authority says Air China and Hainan Airlines flights will take off from Beijing, while Eastern Airlines and Shanghai Airlines will depart from Shanghai. Southern Airlines will operate from Guangzhou and Xiamen Airlines from Xiamen.

Nanjing airport is a new addition to the cross-straits charter flight program. A ceremony to launch the new flights will be held there on Friday July 4th.