2006 LUNAR NEW YEAR CHARTER FLIGHTS - PREPARATIONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TAIPEI 004721 SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP/TC DEPT PASS AIT/W E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/23/2015 TAGS: EAIR ECON PREL CH TW SUBJECT: 2006 LUNAR NEW YEAR CHARTER FLIGHTS - PREPARATIONS BEGIN REF: A. TAIPEI 222 ¶B. TAIPEI 4210 ¶C. TAIPEI 4718 Classified By: AIT Director Douglas H. Paal, Reason 1.4 d Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) Taiwan officials and airlines will have more time to prepare for 2006 Lunar New Year charter flights than a year ago. Preparations will also be easier due to previous experience with 2003 and 2005 Lunar New Year charters. Airlines are pleased that the flights will be available to anyone with a Taiwan passport and valid PRC entry documents and expect higher passenger loads. However, market forces will determine whether the charter flights are significantly more profitable than in years past. Taiwan authorities announced the flights in a relatively low-key manner and officials have emphasized to AIT that no formal "consultations" along the lines of 2005's "Macao model" took place. However, Taipei Airlines Association Chairman Tony C.C. Fan told AIT that the two sides did discuss the issue at a meeting in Macao around November 10. The Taiwan delegation included a director general from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. Fan also said that further progress on discussions of scheduled weekend passenger charter flights and cargo charter flights was unlikely before the Lunar New Year holiday. End summary. Becoming a Routine -------------- ¶2. (U) Taiwan has begun to implement plans for 2006 cross- Strait Lunar New Year charter flights. On November 18, the Mainland Affairs Council's announced that Taiwan and the PRC had agreed to proceed with Lunar New Year passenger charters as discussions of scheduled weekend passenger charters and cargo charters continue (further details reported ref C). This will be the third round of Lunar New Year charters following 2003 and 2005. Aviation officials and airlines will have two months to prepare for the flights, which begin on January 20 and run through February ¶13. This allows much more time for preparations than a year ago. For the 2005 charters, flights were successfully arranged starting only 14 days after the two sides reached an agreement on January 15, 2005. ¶3. (C) Taiwan aviation officials and airlines are well prepared to conduct the flights based on previous experience. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications moved quickly on Monday to submit a plan for Executive Yuan approval on procedures for how airlines should apply for permission to conduct the charters. Airlines are ready with marketing strategies, ticketing and travel document procedures, and arrangements for ground support. Frank Mao, general manager for strategic planning at China Airlines (CAL),told AIT that CAL had already made arrangements with various Chinese airlines earlier in the year to provide ground support services for charter flights. Air China will provide the services in Beijing, China Eastern in Shanghai, and China Southern in Guangzhou. At Xiamen, the airport administration will provide ground support for CAL. More Passengers May Not Mean More Profits -------------- ¶4. (C) Because the airlines have more time to market the flights and more people will be eligible to take them, the airlines expect more full planes this year. The 2003 and 2005 flights were open only to Taiwan businessmen with investment in the PRC. As a result, flights to the PRC before the holiday and back to Taiwan afterwards were less full with passenger load factors averaging only 50 percent in 2005 (ref A). This round anyone with a Taiwan passport and valid PRC entry document can use the flights. CAL's Mao told AIT that he expects all the flights in and out of Shanghai and Guangzhou, the centers of Taiwan investment in the Mainland, to be full. According to Mao, flights to Beijing will be less full because it has less Taiwan investment. Although many Taiwan investors live near Xiamen in Fujian Province, Mao expects the availability of travel through the "mini-links," which connect Xiamen by ferry with the Taiwan-controlled island of Kinmen just off the coast, to reduce passenger loads on charters to Xiamen, offered for the first time this year. Airlines will also benefit from simpler passenger identification procedures, since no documentation of the passenger's investment or employment status will be required. ¶5. (C) However, Jeffrey Hong from Eva Air's International Affairs Department told us that it remains to be seen whether market conditions will make the flights more profitable this round. One press report predicted fiercer price competition with round trip tickets ranging from under NTD 8,000 (about USD 240) for tickets to Xiamen and Guanzhou to NTD 13,000 for flights to Shanghai (about USD 390). This range is NTD 2,000 to NTD 6,000 less than the 2005 flights. However, Far Eastern Air Transport Executive Vice President Phillip Chen predicted that with more time to prepare the airlines would not need to cut prices as much as for the 2005 flights. Because preparations were so rushed last year, Chen said the airlines had found it necessary to offer very inexpensive tickets in order to convince passengers who had already booked flights to switch to charters. ¶6. (C) Cathay Pacific Taiwan General Manager Ivan Chu told AIT that he expects prices for this round to be comparable to prices on regular cross-Strait connection flights but slightly lower due to a modest increase in capacity. Although Cathay Pacific and Dragon Air, Hong Kong airlines serving cross-Strait routes, are likely to lose business to the cross-Strait charters, Chu predicted that the impact would be small. He noted that because the charter carriers can only offer very limited flight options, many passengers will chose to take regular flights with connections in Hong Kong because they offer more flexibility. Stealth "Macao Model" -------------- ¶7. (C) The Taiwan government has taken a relatively low-key approach to the announcement of charter flights for the 2006 Lunar New Year holiday. Mainland Affairs Council Senior Secretary Lee Li-jane emphasized to AIT that the charter flight arrangements were agreed to without a formal "consultation" (xieshang) like the one held for the last round of charter flights. In January 2005, the two sides held a formal meeting in Macao with journalists ready to photograph the historic moment. However, TransAsia Airways Chairman Tony C.C. Fan, who as current chairman of the Taipei Airlines Association (TAA) nominally leads Taiwan's consultations with the PRC on charter flights, subsequently informed AIT that there was a meeting this year that basically followed last year's "Macao model," which included government officials as "consultants" in a delegation lead by TAA. Fan said that he had met with PRC representatives to discuss the agreement around November 10 in Macao. He said his delegation included a director general from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. Further Progress Unlikely Soon -------------- ¶8. (C) The two sides will continue to discuss regularly scheduled weekend passenger charters and cargo charters. According to Fan, remaining outstanding issues include whether the PRC will allow charters to use Shanghai's Pudong Airport for cargo charter flights. The PRC has offered Nanjing and Hangzhou airports as a nearby substitute for crowded Pudong, but Taiwan has not been willing to concede on this point. Taiwan also continues to seek to link an agreement on weekend passenger charters to an agreement to open Taiwan to PRC tourists (ref B). ¶9. (C) Fan told AIT not to expect progress before the Lunar New Year. He doesn't believe there will be much cross- Strait discussion of the issue until then. He also expects progress on charter flights to coincide with a breakthrough on the tourism issue, which he thinks could occur in March. This scenario is plausible considering that Taiwan local elections on December 3 could delay further progress. In addition, the Taiwan government is planning a meeting of economic leaders in January to form a second Economic Development Advisory Conference (EDAC) to follow up on the work of the first EDAC, which met in August 2001. The EDAC is likely to discuss cross-Strait economic issues, such as charter flights, in some detail and make recommendations to the government. A recommendation to move forward on charter flights could provide the Chen administration with political cover that would facilitate further progress in discussions with the PRC. Paal