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DEPARTMENT OF TRADE
I VICTORIA STREET
LONDON SWIH DET
Акк 184!!
· ALUD LIVED IN ALG MY RC.
30 APR 1979
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01-215 01-215 7877
3229
25 April 1979
Mr John Rowland
INDEX
PA
J8.5
First Assistant Secretary:No International Policy Divisi Department of Transport CANBERRA
Dar John,
I was most grateful that you were able to come here at such short notice this week to discuss your next round of negotiations with the ASEAN countries.
2. We agreed that it might be helpful if I were to record our main conclusions as briefly as possible.
3. Desnite a great deal of further careful consideration we could neither of us find any way in which we could preserve the viability of the low fares system, except by continuing the arrangements under which only British Airways and Cantas are authorised to sell the special end-to-end fares for travel between Australia and the UK. We also went on to consider whether any arrangements could be developed which would appear to meet ASEAN requests for access to end-to-end traffic without prejudicing the lower fares. Unfortunately, we could find no such solution.
4. We also discussed the capacity to be operated by ASTAN air- lines between their own countries and Australia in the light of our UK and Hong Kong interests. He agreed that it was essential to match the capacity closely to the expected demand and to avoid leaving any surplus of capacity which would tend to attract the end to end traffic. You undertook to have a further look at the proposals you had previously had in mind in the light of our comments and statistics.
5. As regards the question or the stopover fare we concluded that it would now be difficult to revert to the sort of differen- tials that had emerged as the preferred solution from our meeting in Canberra in January. You felt that it would now be politically extremely difficult to go above the figure of A225 which you had agreed to consider at the meeting with ASEAN in Jakarta. We both noted that this figure should be adjusted to A3225 to take account of increases in fuel costs. In the light of the calculations by both British Airways end Qantas we both concluded that a figure