to us in the next two weeks.
BA's aim in all this, as ours, is to
to introduce the Taiwan services without prejudicing their Peking service, their ability to overfly China or - most vulnerable of all - any prospects of securing access to the faster Northern routeing over China and rights to serve points beyond Peking. They are therefore mindful of the need to maintain good relations with the Chinese. BA again confirmed that they have explored all the options for joint services, subsidiary companies and so on. None make economic sense. But BA are conscious of the value of finding some face saver for the Chinese and are endeavouring to do so, to date without success.
commence can
We went through the timing of the various stages before the services
and have come up with
fleshed a
out timetable, set out in the attached draft telegram to Peking. We have suggested that any reworking of the draft Press Notice be done in Peking and have in mind that David Coates might handle that direct with the MFA. I ought to comment too on the timing of BA and EVA advertising and selling seats on their services. An airline would normally want to do that at least a month before the start of services and BA and EVA are no exception. BA have said that, if it is helpful for some reason we cannot presently foresee, they could postpone this step until mid-October. That is because BA will be heavily dependent on
on Hong Kong-Taiwan sector traffic in the early stages (BA estimate the balance at the outset to be 200 seats for HK-Taiwan passengers per flight, 60 for UK-Taiwan) and it should be relatively easy to get the seats into those markets quickly. But EVA is a different proposition and we cannot expect them to be prepared to wait nor could we require them to do so. In any event the services will be advertised and seats sold "subject to government approval" which is standard practice. We do not see therefore that either carrier should be asked to delay this essential step beyond end September.
We also asked BA for their assessment of the likely readacross to our efforts to secure improved rights under the UK/PRC arrangements. We were all of the view that the likelihood of securing, for example, access to the faster Northern route was likely to be reduced by the introduction of Taiwan services. But we could not gauge whether our prospects were substantially worsened or how much, if at all, they might be improved by delaying until after the Taiwan services have started. We may be better able to judge the extent of any readacross when we actually offer dates to the Chinese and see how they handle the request and respond. Hong Kong have some doubts about the timing, but we can see no particular advantage in delaying and so would like to propose talks in early October as originally planned.
There has been no real contact with the Chinese authorities or airline on trunk route matters since late last year and we need to get some line of communication opened up again. BA have told us that Sir Colin Marshall plans to visit Peking on 25-29 September. As explained in the second draft telegram to Peking, BA hope he could warm up relations with the Chinese before talks
BA have particularly asked for Post's advice
resume.
and