Tsai has no reason to politicize extra flights for Spring Festival travel rush

CHINESE MAINLAND AIRLINES planned an additional 509 flights from mainland cities to Taiwan to facilitate the annual rush to and from the island during this year's Spring Festival holiday. Yet the island's "civil aeronautics administration" did not approve the applications of 176 flights to be operated by China Eastern Airlines and Xiamen Air, on the grounds of "potential flight safety concerns" for those airlines flying the M503 flight course. Li Yang of China Daily comments:

This is a spurious excuse. The M503 flight course, which connects the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta, was launched from north to south, on March 29, 2015, to relieve the air traffic pressure on the old A470 air route along the mainland coast.

Since then more than 100 flights operated by various airlines have used the route each day on average without causing any safety concerns.