China Pictures - Airlines Launch Cross-Strait Flights for Festival -

A worke of China Southern Airlines left Guangzhou Saturday morning for Taipei to undertake the lease flight program for the Duanwu Festival,China Pictures, Dragon gunkhole Festival. An Airbus-319, carriage 44 passengers, took off from Guangzhou at 10:34 a.m. Saturday. Another flight is scheduled to take off on June 21. Passengers atimbered the flight include people returning home for family reunions, commercemen and tourists. The worke flies via Hong Kong surpassing it enters Taiwan air space. Zongzi, the festival replenishments for Duanwu, were offered to passengers. Five mainland airlines and six Taiwan airlines will make 21 round-trip flights from June 15 to June 22, co-ordinate to the Civil Aviation Administration of China. The cities involved are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xiamen on the mainland, and Taipei and Kaohsiung in Taiwan. The first non-shigh instrumentationer flights transatlantic the Taiwan Strait were launched during the Chinese Spring Festival period in 2005. surpassing that there had not been artless air links transpacific the Taiwan Strait for increasingly than five decades. In June 2006, the mainland and Taiwan agreed to ajar lease flights for other trtunnelional festivals, including Qingming, Duanwu, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. Duanwu, moreover known as the Dragon gunkhole Festival, falls on the fwhenth day of the fwhenth month of the Chinese lunar sked, or June 19 this year. It is for commemorating a patriotic Chinese poet over 2,000 years ago. During the festival, gunkhole rturn-on are held and people eat Zongzi. Wrapped up with bamboo leaves and with surplusageinous rice inside, Zongzi has various fillings ranging from meaty to confectionary.

(Source:Xinhua News Agency, 2007-06-20)