THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT
INTERNATIONAL AVIATION DIRECTORATE
Simon Lovett Esq
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an Macam file to me NB
Ma
Dear Suron
MACAU AIRPORT
9 March 1992
Thank you for passing me a copy of
the Consulate-General's summary paper on Macau Airport. As I mentioned to you recently on the telephone, the following points may also be relevant:
(a) a non-scheduled helicopter service operates between Hong Kong (from a helipad by the Shun Tak Centre near Central) and Macau. The helipad can not be licensed for scheduled services under current safety legislation, and civil helicopter operations are not permitted at Kai Tak because of capacity problems. Although scheduled helicopter operations to Macau would probably be permitted from Chek Lap Kok in future, I doubt whether, given that airport's proximity to Macau, there would be a strong end- to-end
for such services in
in competition with available surface transport. The existing helicopter link looks like continuing, therefore, possibly with Chek Lap Kok simply as a mid-point;
demand
(b) as the paper mentions, the Sino-Portuguese JD (unlike the Sino-British JD) contains no provisions governing aviation. This has important implications for the basis on which Macanese air services will be permitted. The Sino- British JD guarantees Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy in the field of civil aviation, and it goes into some detail over how this autonomy will be exercised, notably but not solely - through Hong Kong ASAS. The British side fought hard for these provisions on the basis that they would be vital to the continuing economic and social well- being of Hong Kong.
In the absence of equivalent guarantees in the Sino-Portuguese JD, or indeed of any significant aviation industry in Macau to be protected, it is a very unsafe assumption to make that Macanese air services will be allowed by the Chinese to follow the