CONFIDENTIAL
PEKING
COPY HONG KONG GOVERNOR
MIFT: Text of letter to CAAC
The United Kingdom Aeronautical Authorities have now
considered your letter of 4 April stating that the
Chinese side does not accept condition, 2(c) in the
permits relating to the Tianjin/Hong Kong and Nanjing/
Hong Kong services. The UK authorities remain convinced
that this condition is entirely justified by the fact
that our agreements regulate capacity between Hong Kong
and Shanghai/Peking and these limitations would be
meaningless if they could be overridden by the use of
services to other points in China to carry additional
traffic on through services to these two points.
The UK authorities have noted that during April a very
high proportion of the passengers carried on these services
(on immediately connecting services have been booked through to Shanghai or Peking in breach
of the terms of the relevant permit.
The United Kingdom authorities agree that this matter
should be resolved through consultations within the terms
of Article 4 of the Air Services Agreement, but there can
be no increase in the services operated on these routes
while such consultation is taking place. The permit
for Tianjin will therefore be restricted to two services
per week from 1 May and that for Nanjing will remain
at three services per week. The permits have been issued