The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Incorporated in Hong Kong with limited liability
Box 64 GPO Hong Kong
M. G. R. Sandberg
Chairman
о
His Excellency Sir Murray MacLehose GBE,
Governor of Hong Kong
Government House
HONG KONG,
KCMG, KCVO
25 March 1980
Your Excellency:
HONG KONG/LONDON AIR ROUTE
As Chairman of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation I have an obvious corporate (as well as personal) interest in the commercial prosperity and continued economic growth of Hong Kong and a concern over any public decision which might impede that growth.
I am, therefore, writing to express my dismay at the recently-announced decision by the Civil Aviation Authority in the United Kingdom to award the route licence for the London/Hong Kong sector to a carrier other than Cathay Pacific. In so doing I have, of course, to declare an interest in view of the Bank's 25% shareholding in Cathay Pacific. I feel con- fident, however, that you will accept that my comments are prompted by consideration of the public interest and not by any narrow sectional interest as a shareholder.
The reasons advanced by the Civil Aviation Authority for the award of the licence to British Caledonian and for the rejection of the application by Cathay Pacific are in my view ill-founded and wholly unacceptable. As I understand it, the rationale for the decision is that the type of aircraft operated by British Caledonian (the DC10) is better suited to the present operational needs of the route than that used by Cathay Pacific (the Boeing 747). It seems to me that to award a route licence which is valid for ten years solely on the suitability of a particular aircraft type to meet the present (and, therefore, short-term) operational needs of a route is a remarkably short-sighted and unsound policy. I need hardly add that the policy is even more open to question when the aircraft type chosen is one whose commercial future must, in the light of recent events, be one of considerable uncertainty. So far as the relative merits of the DC10 and the Boeing 747 are concerned, there can in my mind be no doubt that the travelling public has demonstrated a clear preference for the Boeing 747 on grounds both of in-flight comfort and of safety.
/Page 2
1 Queen's Road Central Telephone: 5-2677-111 Telex: 73205 HSBC HX Telegrams: Hongbank Hongkong
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.