Mandarin Airlines (華信航空) has this on their homepage:
2011年包機開航台桃=石垣於5月14至10月26日
每週三、六飛行
班號AE7334/7335
16:15與19:00起飛，飛50分
Relevant info in English:
2011 charter flights Taoyuan-Ishigaki between May 14 and October 26, on Wednesdays and Saturdays
Flight designators AE7334/AE7335
Departure times: TPE 16:15; ISG 19:00 (18:00 Taiwan time)
Flight duration: 50 minutes
And according to a travel agent who talked with Transasia Airlines (復興航空), their TSA-HUN-ISG flights are to begin on April 28, with flights on Thursdays and Sundays
Will post more info later…
Background information is available in this thread from last year:
“Re: [url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/neighboring-ishigaki-island-direct-flights-from-jan-2010/55512/1 Ishigaki Island: direct flights from Jan. 2010[/url]”
Getting the information is like pulling teeth… at least i was able to confirm one schedule today at the airport counter of TransAsia in Hualien.
Transasia Airlines (復興航空)
Flights between Hualien and Ishigaki are scheduled for the following days:
Thursday, April 28; Sunday, May 01
Thursday, May 05; Sunday, May 08
Thursday, May 12; Sunday, May 15
Thursday, May 19; Sunday, May 22
Thursday, May 26; Sunday, May 22
Thursday, May 29
Going:
Songshan departure likely at 14:50 or later (time to be confirmed) / Hualien departure at 16:30 (time confirmed)
Returning:
Ishigaki departure likely at 17:30 (18:30 Ishigaki time) (time to be confirmed) / Hualien departure likely at 19:30 (time to be confirmed)
Songshan arrival likely at around 20:10 (time to be confirmed)
No info on fares yet. (Last year return tickets were around 7000NT$.)
Talked with two travel agencies in Ishigaki, and interestingly they don’t have any information yet. :s
Mandarin Airlines (華信航空)
Couldn’t get any information in Hualien or Ishigaki, except that there was to be one single flight on April 6 (realistically speaking, if there is one flight at all, there would have to be another one a few days earlier or later - perhaps the April 2 flight i had heard about in Ishigaki in late February actually went out). The lady at the office of Mandarin Air in Taipei i talked to was unable to give me any flight dates but told me that they are not offering tickets for private individuals (only for tour groups) - this information may change.
Again, travel agencies in Ishigaki don’t have any information (yet).
The travel agent where i made reservations today gave me a departure time of 16:25 (not 16:30)
[quote=“yuli”]Returning:
Ishigaki departure likely at 17:30 (18:30 Ishigaki time) (time to be confirmed) / Hualien departure likely at 19:30 (time to be confirmed)
Songshan arrival likely at around 20:10 (time to be confirmed)[/quote]
This year it looks apparently more like this:
Returning:
Ishigaki departure abt 18:30 (19:30 Ishigaki time) (time to be confirmed) / Hualien departure likely at 20:30 (time to be confirmed)
Songshan arrival likely at around 21:10 (time to be confirmed
Today (Apr 5) i was quoted 8500NT$; and i also got a report from Ishigaki that a fare of 46,000Yen has been sighted there in a newspaper ad, so somebody over there obviously has information.
(Last year the fare was 43,000Yen - and although it is of no concern to people in Taiwan, this year’s fare from Ishigaki is again almost twice the Taiwanese fare.)
It is already apparent (from bookings and cancellations) that the number of Japanese tourists set to come to Ishigaki will be significantly lower this year (numbers have been slightly declining in recent years but this year we can see the added effect of the earthquake and its aftermath) - so i imagine there might be some discounts available in the less crowded parts of the year (meaning outside of the time period July 20 to the end of August). Maybe the best time slots for travel are mid-June to about July 20 and September to mid-November, except when Typhoons are around…
[quote=“yuli”]Flights between Hualien and Ishigaki are scheduled for the following days:
Thursday, April 28; Sunday, May 01
Thursday, May 05; Sunday, May 08
Thursday, May 12; Sunday, May 15
Thursday, May 19; Sunday, May 22
Thursday, May 26; Sunday, May 22
Thursday, May 29.[/quote]
Forget it! Although i got that schedule from the TransAsia staff at the airport in Hualien on April 4, according to a April 7 report in one of our local newspapers, TransAsia had already decided at the end of March to cancel 15 of the 18 planned flights for May and June due to lack of bookings.
Bookings on the cruise ships going from Taiwan to Ishigaki Island and Okinawa Island are also down: apparently many Taiwanese believe that since our islands are politically part of Japan they must be unsafe now, what with the earthquakes and related problems with nuclear power plants in northern Japan. Well, it’s impossible to argue with ignorance.
Anyway, the only flights that are still on now, according to a message from an Ishigaki travel agency i got today, are these:
Thursday, April 28; Sunday, May 01
Thursday, May 05
That ferry company went under 4 years ago - there are no ships going these days.
One ferry used to go from Keelung on Tuesdays, and whenever it went to Ishigaki Island it took 7 hours, otherwise 19 hours to Okinawa Island.
A second ferry used to go from Kaohsiung to Okinawa Island…
Ah, so I was too optimistic. But that’s just wrong. We need to have as many ferries running as possible, taking man from island to island, broadening horizons and fostering trade. Stimulating and nurturing closer ties between the good folk of Taiwan and those Ishigakians.
Keep us posted on the flights, prices etc. Any chance of a sub-10k return from Hualien?
Transporting people by ship seems to be a money losing proposition these days, so many of the ferries going up and down the Japanese coast have disappeared as well in recent years.
You mean the fare? For the time being a return trip is NT$8600 (this fare is the same whether you start from Taipei or from Hualien).
I was being a bit tongue in cheek about the ferries. Although it would be nice to hop on and sail across to Japan. Just had the wife call up a few agencies and they all said Ishigaki isn’t possible without a baoji 包機 (that’s getting enough people together to charter a plane or something?). Perhaps she should be looking at buying direct from the airline.
That’s one option - they can certainly give you a name of an agent in your area… their homepage is here: tna.com.tw/
In the 2010 thread i had posted this info:
And i bought my ticket in Hualien here a few days ago: 詠莉旅行社 Phone: 03-835-9477 Address: 花蓮市建國路286號
Just noticed they also have a website: wintour.ittms.com.tw/
With the tourism slump in Japan this looks like the time to hop over to Ishigaki Island for little money: someone i know reserved a ticket today for the flight going April 28 and returning May 1 - with accommodation included (business hotel “Touyoku Inn”, located near the cruise ship terminal) - for NT$9600 total (NT$8600 for the ticket and NT$1000 for 3 nights at the hotel).
I finally found the updated information (Apr 11) on the company website: tna.com.tw/holiday/6.htm
(In case you can’t read Chinese, look for the entry containing the flight numbers “GE6812/GE6811”, in the lower half of the page)
They show 4 flights to Ishigaki:
Thu 04-28 Sun 05-01
Thu 05-05 Sun 05-08
And they list the following booking agencies: 大榮: 02-2522-3219; 燦星: 02-8178-3000; 易飛網: 02-8161-1919; 花蓮詠莉: 03-835-9477
[quote=“yuli”]Mandarin Airlines (華信航空) has this on their homepage:
[…]
2011 charter flights Taoyuan-Ishigaki between May 14 and October 26, on Wednesdays and Saturdays[/quote]
The dates appear to have been changed! These flights are no longer scheduled in May…
I can’t find the information that i originally posted on the Mandarin Airlines homepage any more - on the other hand, ClubMed and various other agencies list these flights on their sites. And although Google still brings up many pages up when i search for May flights, on all of those pages that i have seen the information has been changed: there are no flights in May mentioned now, instead the earliest flights are in June. Here are some example: clubmed.com.tw/cm/%E5%BA%A6% … ac-od.html perfect.com.tw/FIT/GO/CM/L_M … LA_CD=KABC
However, i’ve found one page that mentions a flight on May 28: 2011/5/28 leonpkg.com.tw/Group/TourDet … UBKR10528A
And, finally, there are still a handful pages where the original dates are being shown - they all belong to the same blog by someon using the handle “starbuckser’s creek” where the original announcement from Mandarin Airlines has been reproduced in the same way i reproduced it on the first post in this thread…
But this looks like outdated information. ClubMed is cerrtainly a reliable source, since they have been scheduling these Mandarin Air flights fro several years now.
A travel agent who handles ClubMed bookings told me that Mandarin told him there was no such flight (sounds reasonable - it matches the info on the ClubMed homepage)
I’ve found a few travel agencies where i can get service in Japanese (probably not of much use to Forumosa users) and also two that have English speaking staff, so i’ll post those here:
interlink.com.tw
(phone numbers and e-mail link shown on their homepage)
Contact person: Jeannie (Taipei)
whosetravel.com/
(phone numbers and mail addresses are shown on their homepage)
Contact person: Dale (Taichung)
They do bookings via e-mail, phone, etc., but i don’t know whether they have been handling flights to Ishigaki yet. But you could take specific information about the airlines and the flights they advertise from this thread (and the predecessor thread) and send it to them to find out whether they can handle Ishigaki flights for you.
TransAsia Airlines has proven to be inventive in hard times: since they can’t get many people to take the direct flight packages to Ishigaki Island these days, the have started to offer same-day excursion tickets.
For NT$500 you can leave on the 4pm flight from Hualien, arrive in Ishigaki at around 5pm (6pm Japan time), have something to eat or drink or do some shopping in the airport, and fly back on the 6pm (Japan time 7pm) flight to be back in Hualien at about 7pm. With the time required for check-in and immigration on both sides (assuming you have no check-in baggage) the whole trip takes about three and a half hours. I just met a few people (on the April 28 and May 1 flights) who did those mini-trips. some for shopping, some to see friends on the other side for a quick meal and drinks. I am thinking, if the weather is OK on Thursday or Sunday, and some people i want to see have time to meet me at the airport in Ishigaki, i’d like to go again and do that short trip myself…
If all you need is the two stamps (showing that you have left the country and that you have returned), it would, indeed, be as you say.
For some reason i was under the impression that there was more to a visa run, such as seeing an officer in one of Taiwan’s representative offices and doing some paperwork there. (But i may have misunderstood this matter.)
