JINAN - East China's Weihai city in Shandong province will launch its first direct passenger flight to Taiwan this year, Xinhua learned from the provincial Taiwan affairs office on Saturday.

The first flight is scheduled to leave the Taoyuan airport in Taipei at 6:45 am and arrive in Weihai at 9:20 am in late December.

The return flight will depart from Weihai at 10:30 am and land in Taipei at 1:20 pm. Taiwan's China Airlines will run the direct flight.

Visitors from Taiwan to Weihai this year exceeded 20,000, up 3.2 percent year on year. In the first half of this year, about 1,350 people from Weihai went to Taiwan.