Taiwan and China Restore Air Links
da: The New York Times
Shortly after dawn on Monday, a passenger plane took off from Shenzhen, China, bound for Taiwan. The 80-minute flight across the Taiwan Strait was the first direct, daily cross-strait traffic since the end of the civil war in 1949 and another step in the improvement of relations between the sides.
The Shenzhen Airlines flight from China — along with a later TransAsia Airways flight to Shanghai from the Taiwanese capital, Taipei — inaugurated regular direct flights between Taiwan and mainland China. Direct ship traffic and mail service also began Monday, state media reported.
Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, reported that the flight from Shenzhen took off at 7:20 a.m. The TransAsia flight from Taipei left 46 minutes later. A total of 16 direct passenger flights were…
