TNAG-0964-FCO40-1183-Air-services-between-the-UK-and-Hong-Kong-1980 — Page 44

CENTRE DAILY NEWS (27/3/80)

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The CAA's decision to reject CPA's application to operate

an air route between HK and London has aroused much conern among the people. The HK government will support CPA's appeal against this

unfair decision.

In the very beginning, Britain planned to have seven additional flights between IK and London every week, four granted to British Caledonian and three to CPA, This arrangement has, indeed, given bigger advantage to Britain already. But later, with the fear that British companies would be at a disadvantage because of the different tax systems in HK and Britain, Britain used political tactics to intervene and deprive CPA of its right to "perate the route.

As we all know, CPA's services are "perfect" with world standard efficiency. It has equal status with other airlines in the civil aviation business. Why should it be edged out of the HK-London route? This crly shows that HK can practice mutual respect with its friends, but is discriminated against when dealing with people from

the same family.

To defend its incorrect decision, the CAA published a 30-

page report. However, this report failed to justify its argument in many areas. For instance, Britain admitted that HK people were dissatisfied with British Airways' insufficient services, but it could not accept HK people's comments. it said that it was about to grant CPA permission to provide better services between HK and London to meet the increasing demand. But on the other hand, it felt that the present demand was not so big as to fill two more 747

planes every day.

The CAA considered CPA to be over optimistic about the

number of passengers, and thus rejected its application. But, the report pointed out that British Caledonian was even more optimistic and, yet, the CAA thought this was not unacceptable. Does this not reflect that Britain adopted a double standard?