Source: Yuyuan Tan Tian
On April 19, the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced that from that day, the M503 route W122 and W123 connecting lines will be enabled to operate from west to east.
Tan Zhu noticed that the M503 route in the news also appeared in the news released by the Civil Aviation Administration on January 30:
From February 1, the flight bias measure for the M503 route to operate from north to south will be lifted. Subsequently, the Civil Aviation Administration of China will also enable the M503 route W122 and W123 connecting routes to operate from west to east to improve the efficiency of airspace operation.
At that time, this news caused a lot of attention, not only did the DPP authorities jump out to "protest", but some American and Western politicians also expressed their "concerns". After analyzing the discussion of the M503 route on social media on the island at that time, Tan Zhu also found that in addition to "tourism", the high-frequency words that appeared together with the word "route" include "politics", "air defense", "coast guard" and "coast guard".
Why is there so much discussion about a route?
To answer this question, we can start with a statement from the last newsletter - improving the efficiency of airspace operations.
Tan Zhu learned that previously, the air service between the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta was a route with the code A470, which passed through the skies over Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong provinces.
With the rapid development of the mainland economy and the increasing demand for travel from coastal areas, the A470 route is "not enough".
According to the international standard, if the average daily flight volume on a route exceeds 400, it is necessary to divert the route. The A470 route has more than 1,200 flights per day, and route optimization is imminent.
In this context, after the approval of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the new route with the code M503 was officially launched, and there are three connecting routes, namely W121 to Dongshan, Zhejiang, W122 to Fuzhou, Fujian and W123 to Xiamen, Fujian.
In 2015, with the approval of the M503 route and three connecting routes by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a large number of domestic and foreign airlines submitted applications for the use of the new routes.
Liu Kuangyu, an expert on Taiwan issues, said that the M503 route can facilitate direct air navigation between the two sides of the strait on the premise of reducing or eliminating the need to detour other airspace.
Shorter range means more speed and greater efficiency.
In other words, this can greatly promote the integration and development of the two sides of the strait.
However, with regard to such a route that serves the compatriots on both sides of the strait and is conducive to further broadening cross-strait exchanges, the Taiwan authorities have repeatedly used the excuse of "threatening flight safety" in an attempt to prevent the normal operation of this route.
According to the Taiwan authorities, the M503 route overlaps with the direct flights from Matsu and Kinmen to the island of Taiwan, and there will be "flight safety" problems.
In fact, as early as the beginning of the design evaluation of the M503 route, the Civil Aviation Administration of China had already considered that the new route could not conflict with the direct flight routes between Kinmen and Matsu to the main island of Taiwan, so the flight altitude of the M503 route was controlled at more than 9,000 meters, while the flight altitude of the W2, W6 and W8 flights between Kinmen and Matsu to Taiwan Island was only about 6,000 meters, and the vertical distance between the two was about 3,000 meters, so there was no so-called "flight safety" problem at all.
There were voices of concern on the island, and at that time, the two sides of the strait dealt with these problems through communication. When the route was officially put into operation, some adjustments were made - some routes of the M503 route will be offset to the west by a certain distance in actual use, and the routes running from south to north, as well as connecting routes to Dongshan, Zhejiang and other places, will be temporarily suspended.
In January 2018, the reality of the situation has changed some new - the Spring Festival is approaching, and the cross-strait passengers travel frequently during the Spring Festival, in order to meet the demand for shipping and maximize operational efficiency, the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced that the 176 additional Spring Festival overtime flights will use the M503 route.
At that time, the Civil Aviation Administration of China also announced that the M503 route will open a route running from south to north and a W121 connecting route, and the W122 route and W123 route will also open normal operation from east to west.
As far as the mainland is concerned, this was originally a normal adjustment to further improve the operational efficiency of the M503 route and further "lighten the burden" on the A470 route, but the so-called "Mainland Affairs Council" of the Taiwan authorities has used this as a reason to accuse the mainland of threatening the flight safety of Taiwan's flights, and even did not hesitate to use the issue of the vast number of Taiwan compatriots returning home for the Chinese New Year as a threat.
Although the aviation authorities on both sides of the strait previously agreed not to limit the total number of overtime flights for the Spring Festival, on January 18, 2018, the Taiwan authorities suddenly announced that they would "temporarily not approve" 176 overtime flights for the Spring Festival, which caused more than 50,000 Taiwan compatriots to return to their hometowns.
Since then, whenever there is news about the M503 route, the Taiwan authorities have used this as an excuse to hype up the so-called "airspace security" issue.
A noteworthy detail is that in the 2018 announcement, the Civil Aviation Administration of China made it clear that flights operating in the "northbound" direction will be flown in strict accordance with the original M503 route announced in the regulations (without westward bias measures), while flights operating in the "southbound" direction will remain unchanged (with westward bias measures).
This also means that today, many flights have been running smoothly on the original M503 route for six years, and the "security" pretense played by the Taiwan authorities is simply untenable.
In January this year, the Civil Aviation Authority of China announced the cancellation of the flight bias measure for the M503 route to operate from north to south. This time, the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced the use of the M503 route W122 and W123 connecting lines from west to east.
This means that the efficiency of airspace operations will continue to improve. Take Xiamen to Taipei as an example, before, the plane took off from Xiamen, first had to fly to the southwest, and then had to go through many turns. After this adjustment, it is possible to fly directly to the east through the M503 route.
Just after the Civil Aviation Administration released the news, Tan Zhu noticed that some media on the island mentioned two points in relevant reports, one is "no warning raid", and the other is "Taiwan's protest is useless".
As a matter of fact, the opening and adjustment of the M503 route itself is a matter that is beneficial to both sides of the strait, and if the Taiwan authorities "call for grievances," it will obviously be in the wrong direction. Prior to this, there had been some hype by the Taiwan authorities, and the two sides of the strait had already resolved some problems through communication. Now, if the DPP authorities go further and further in the wrong direction, it will only make the people on the island more soberly understand the DPP's essence of harming the island's interests.
Some people on the island do not need to "complain" because dignity needs to be won by their own performance. [Source: Yuyuan Tan Tian WeChat public account]