Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1A 2AH
HKKA
RAJIV
DESK OFFIC INDEX
Telephone 01- 233 3524 No
He
1978
Action Taken
Your reference (96) ECON 15/951/49V
UNCLASSIFIED
Mrs L Tse
Economic Services Branch
Government Secretariat
Lower Albert Road
HONG KONG
Our reference
MRA 183/501/1
Date
16 February 1978
AIR NAVIGATION (OVERSEAS TERRITORIES) ORDER 1977
NIR
1. Thank you for your letter of 28 November on this subject about which we have consulted the Director of Operational Services Overseas of the Civil Aviation Authority. Detailed comments on the draft enclosed with your letter are on the enclosed CAA internal memorandum.
2. The draft needs to make it clear that the regulations being made by the Governor of Hong Kong are to have effect only in the law of Hong Kong. As drafted, they purport to amend the Air Navigation (Overseas Territories) Order generally in relation to all overseas territories. Possibly its deceptive appearance does not matter, but it would not be difficult to indicate in the introductory paragraph that it is the Governor of Hong Kong who is making the Order, and in Regulation I that the Order is to be published in the Hong Kong Gazette; and in Regulation 3 and 4 that the Regulations referred to are amended in respect of Hong Kong. Article 91(2) of the 1977 Order is slightly ambiguous in this respect. It could have been better were it drafted so as to indicate that the Governor of a particular territory can only amend the Order in respect of the law of his own territory.
3.
We are not entirely clear what the authorities want to achieve by amending Regulation Ï(3). In your letter you say that the airlines allow for the tendency of passengers to carry more luggage than elsewhere, in calculating the permissible all-up weight of their aircraft. However, the permissible all-up weight is specified in the certificate of airworthiness, and is not calculated by the airlines. If, as proposed, you delete the whole of paragraph (3) there will be no requirement that each piece of baggage or container shall be separately weighed, in which case the airlines would be free to enter into the load sheet any guess which they may make, however wild of the mark it may be. This would not of course be a contribution to air safety.
4. If, on the other hand, the authorities have in mind the deletion only of the proviso to paragraph 3(a) with a consequential amendment to paragraph (b), the effect will be that the baggage must be weighed, but that the assumptions
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