Registry O
No.
ECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret,
Secret.
Confidential.
Restricted.
Unclassified.
RIVACY MARKING
In Confidence
A
CONFIDENTIAL
}
DSR 11
DRAFT
To:-
Miss Brown
Mr Getazzi Murray
cc Mr McLaren, HK&GD
Type 1 +
From
A E Stoddart
Telephone No. Ext.
Department
AIR SERVICES ON THE LONDON HONG KONG ROUTE
Broblem
1. In his letter of 3 August Mr Roberts has made it clear that
the Secretary of State for Trade has already decided, for both policy and legal reasons,not to direct the CAA to regard CPA as on an equal footing with the UK based airlines and that Xxxd an intervention at Ministerial level would be required if this decision were to be reconsidered. Mr Cortazzi bas asked for advice.
Recommendation
2.I recommend that we should accept Mr Nott's decision but
point out to the DOT the need to ensure that the interests of CPA and the Hong Kong Government can be taken into account if necessary at a later stage of the proceedings.
Murray
3.
A draft reply from Mr Certazzi to Mr Roberts is attached. K&GD and Legal Advisers concur. Background and Argument
Under the 1971 Civil Aviation Act the CAA has various duties
to British airlines which to meet the definition in the Act
must have their principal place of business in the UK. The Hong Kong authorities have quite rightly pointed out
that this places CPA ata disadvantage (at least in theory; in practice the CAA is likely to give them a fair hearing). It is however difficult to find a way round this. The definition of British airline in the Act was quite deliberate and there are considerable doubts about the
world
that it
propriety of any direction which in effect imply should be disregarded in a particular case. In these circumstances we are not on sufficiently strong ground to rge the DOT to reconsider their policy.
4 One alternative way of proceeding would be tohmend the definition of British airline a procedure that is not
Dd 0532000 800M 5/78 HMSO Bracknell
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