Rejection of extra flights is 'revenge': academic

Taiwan's rejection of additional flights during Spring Festival shows that Tsai Ing-wen's administration has intentionally "created antagonism" with the mainland, a Taiwan studies researcher said.

"It is revenge," said Wang Hailiang, a researcher of Taiwan studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

Taiwan's transport authority turned down two airlines' plans for 176 additional Spring Festival flights on Monday.

Adding more flights during the Chinese New Year has been a common practice for years to facilitate Taiwan people returning home for the holidays. This year, mainland airlines have applied to add 614 flights from mainland cities to Taiwan from Feb 2 to March 2. This year, Spring Festival falls on Feb 16.

However, Taiwan authorities have refused to approve 176 flights by China Eastern Airlines and Xiamen Airlines because the two companies are using new flight route M503 and its connecting routes.

The island's civil aviation department has required airlines operating in Taiwan to stop using the northbound flight route M503, which was launched on Jan 4 by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, citing potential flight safety concerns, island media has reported.

The CAAC said the northbound route, along with three new connecting routes, is to relieve air traffic pressure along the southeast coastal area, and it has undergone full technical appraisal and been approved by the International Civil Aviation Organization so "there's no so-called safety issues".

The new route has an average of 27 flights per day.

"It will ultimately damage the interests of air carriers and people of both sides," the CAAC said, in response to the disapproval of the additional flights.

Taiwan authorities have said that they are not willing to approve the flights before the mainland is willing to talk about the new route.

"Tsai's administration also sees it as an opportunity to resume official communication with the mainland," Wang said. "However, the mainland won't yield. The acknowledgment of the 1992 Consensus is a bottom line for the mainland to resume official talks with Taiwan."

Since July 2016, official communication between the mainland and the island has been cut off because the new leader, Tsai Ing-wen, failed to recognize the 1992 Consensus, the one-China policy.

Zhang Yi contributed to this story.