BY BAG
布政司署
香港下亞
畢道
158
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HONG KONG
***** OUR REF.: SCR 1/4831/76JTV
* YOUR Ref.:
RJT McLaren Esq
#KK 2463/1
Hong Kong & General Department OFFICER FCO
IN EX
18th August, 1978
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2
CONCLUSION OF SPECIAL FLIGHTS VIETNAM - HONG KONG
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1. Mr Quenti
Mr sy 5.34
In my letter of 7th July, I anticipated that we would be running one flight in early August and another flight in late August or early September, if the demand proved to be there. At that time there were 468 potential passengers of whom 381 were bound for Hong Kong and the remainder destined for either the United Kingdom or Canada. Not all of these were expected to travel, because some were unable to obtain exit visas for various reasons and others were unwilling to leave without other relatives who are unqualified for entry to Hong Kong.
2.
In the event, and despite Maideen's best efforts, we have not yet managed to put together the next plane-load. It now looks as if the next flight will not take place before 2nd September. It is not yet clear whether the Vietnamese will allow the operation to spill over into October, in view of their wish to bring to an end all charter flights of this nature by September/October, but we are still assuming that there will be a second flight in September.
3.
The number of potential passengers has dropped to 395 (348 entry permit holders, 40 Hong Kong residents, 7 British subjects mostly children born in Hong Kong but whose parents are ineligible for settlement here). The reason for this reduction is that Maideen is making arrangements for the 80 holders of visa promise letters (75 for the United Kingdom and 5 for Canada) to travel on a commercial flight via Bangkok).
4.
We are still receiving applications at the rate of about 1, 000 a month, of which 50% are applications for reconsideration of cases already refused. The current rate of approvals is not more than 10 per month. So that once the special flights come to an end the numbers eligible to travel by commercial flights will be very small.
5.
I undertook to tell you what we were going to say to the media about discontinuing the flights. To some extent this has been pre-empted by press questions put to the Immigration Department, which we could not evade. The answers
/were
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