MING PAO EVENING NEWS (24/3/80)
PEOPLE IN TOURIST TRADE TALK ABOUT DISCRIMINATION
The rejection of CPA's application to operate the HK/London
route was the talk of the town in tourism circles recently.
People were surprised that the rights had been granted to
another British airline.
Undoubtedly, if HK was a country, the benefits of this air route would be shared evenly by HK's airline (CFA) and the British
Airway. The fact that this route had long been monopolised by BA
reflected discrimination against HK. Now BA is reducing its service
and is willing to accept one or two other airlines to operate on
this route. But the BCAA has not permitted CPA to join. This is cheer
discrimination.
HK has been trying to look after the interest of Britain.
And most of the big orders were placed in Britain, e.g. the Mass
Transit Railway, buses and naval boats. But Britain to the contrary
does not want to leak out any benefits to K.
The grounds that the BCAA based its decision to reject the
application of CA did not follow any principle, and are very vague.
Professionals in HK could easily quash all these 'grounds'.
(As
their reasoning may involve a lot of technical terms, such as the number of flights, seating capacity etc., we do not wish to discuss them in this article).
People in the tourist trade are worried that without a HK
airline flying to Britain, it would be difficult to attract local
tourists to Europe. HK people are not just fighting for several
more flights, but for other real needs.
by CPA.
It is said that the HK goverment will support the appeal
We do hope that the appeal will bring about a new result.