HK, Taiwan agree on new air pact

HONG KONG - Taiwan and Hong Kong agreed to icrease flights between them, in a deal that could help chart a path toward ending a ban on direct transportation links between rivals Taiwan and China, The Asian Wall StreetJournal reported.

The five-year agreement, signed over the weekend, ends more than a year of dispute and delay.

The deal will eventually expand the number of passenger flights on the Taiwan-HK route, the main conduit for travel between China and Taiwan, by up to 98 more a week.

Six local airlines will now fly the route, instead of four.

From today, each side gets 32 new roundtrip passenger flights a week, on top of 121 now.

More than 6.7 million people flew between Taiwan and Hong Kong last year, 75 percent of them on China Air or Cathay PAcific. That joint lock on the route will be weakened, the report said.

The biggest winner is EVA Airways, which will be able to add 24 passenger flights a week on top of its existing 16.

But the outcome also unexpectedly benefited China Air, the state-controlled flagship, AWSJ said. Taiwan law bars China Air from receiving additional international flights for a year because one of its planes crashed May 25 en route to Hong Kong, killing 225 people. However, Mandarin Airlines, which is 91percent-owned by China Air, gained eight passenger flights a week to Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong Dragon Airlines and Air Hong Kong will fly to Taipei for the first time. Dragonair, which already flies to Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan, will compete with Cathay for passengers on the Taipei route. Cathay owns 18 percent of Dragonair.

Spokeswoman Bevis Yiu said Dragonair will begin with 22 flights a week to Taipei. Cathay gained three more passenger flights a week.