BEIJING, Feb. 22 -- The Chinese mainland will make utmost efforts to facilitate exchanges across the Taiwan Strait and reduce the costs of such activities, said a mainland spokesperson on Wednesday. Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said the mainland spares no effort in facilitating a substantial expansion of cross-Strait flights, with schedules dynamically managed by airline companies from both sides. Noting the limited flight capacity and limited amount of non-stop destinations as a result of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities' unilateral restrictions, Zhu said relevant authorities in Taiwan did not respond to the mainland's request to reopen 16 non-stop flight destinations. Zhu urged the DPP authorities to remove such barriers and restore the normal order of direct passenger flights across the Strait. (....)