The touchdown of flight CI585 at Pudong International Airport, Shanghai on Saturday marked the start of the peak in non-stop charter travel between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan over the Spring Festival period.

Taiwan-based China Airlines' service is being followed by 16 other return flights before the start of the festival on Wednesday, also known as Chinese Lunar New Year.

They comprise six on Saturday, four on Sunday and another six on Monday, between Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou on the mainland and Kaohsiung and Taipei in Taiwan.

  The first direct charter plane in 56 years carrying 242 Taiwan business people and their families from the Chinese mainland landed in Taipei on January 29.

In the three-week-long scheme, airlines from the mainland and Taiwan are running 48 non-stop, return trips.

Civil aviation professionals from both sides of the Straits reached consensus on the plan earlier last month in Macao.

The charter flights were warmly welcomed by Taiwan business people and their relatives. China Southern Airlines said that some passengers on the first flight had booked round-trip tickets simply to take part in the event.

Many said the 56-year-old ban on direct flights across the Straits should be permanently lifted. "We should have these flights all year round, not just the holiday," one unidentified traveler told media.

In 2003, Taiwan civil jetliners were allowed to fly to the mainland for the first time since 1949 under a similar scheme. However, due to restrictions of the Taiwan authorities, the flights had to make stopovers in Hong Kong or Macao and no mainland airlines were involved.

It is estimated that there are now more than 700,000 Taiwan business people investing in the mainland and staying there for most of the year.