Mr Murray
HAK 1846
RECEIVED & P*AWING. A
AFER
INDEX
CONFIDENTIAL
+ bir-14/2/3
80
HONG KONG/UK AIR SERVICES
1.
Mr David Wong, the Hong Kong Deputy Secretary for Economic Services, a Hong Kong delegate to the CAA hearing on Hong Kong/UK air services, called this morning.
2.
The CAA hearing is now finished but Mr Wong did not expect the decision to be announced until the beginning of March. He was however much more optimistic about CPA's chances than when I last saw him at the end of December. He was confident that CPA would get a licence to fly London/ Hong Kong; he also thinks that there is a good chance that they would get the sole additional licence. (There would however probably be an appeal against such a decision).
3. British Caledonian have not helped their case by applying to the CAA for licences to fly to Manila and Taipei through Hong Kong: they said at the Hong Kong hearing that they were only interested in the London/Hong Kong end to end traffic. The Hong Kong Government were as concerned as we and Peking that nothing should be done which could delay the implementation of the UK/PRC Air Services Agreement.
4. Mr Wong thought that the CAA's delay in reaching a decision would not seriously affect Hong Kong/London air services. Although British Airways will cut their flights to Hong Kong from 11 to 7 a week at the beginning of April, there willl be more end-to-end seats available since the number of intermediate stop-overs will be reduced.
31 January 1980
Dip
R D Clift
Hong Kong and General Department
Сс
Mr Burton MAED Mr McLaren FED
CONFIDENTIAL