TNAG-1372-FCO40-1818-Ministerial-visits-from-the-UK-to-Hong-Kong-1985 — Page 71

BACKGROUND

CONFIDENTIAL

AIR SERVICES

Hong Kong/PRC Air Services

5.

First round of talks on Air

Services between

the UK,

Hong Kong and China took place in Peking in September. A

exists on scheduled routes

of CAAC, the Chinese

be tween

airline,

considerable imbalance

Hong Kong and China in favour

which currently operates over 50 scheduled services to Hong

Kong each week compared to 3 Cathay Pacific scheduled flights to Shanghai, one British Airways scheduled flight to Peking and

one CPA charter flight to Peking. We hope to persuade the

Chinese to allow Cathay Pacific to operate at least 2 scheduled

flights to Peking each week and preferably 3, in addition to the scheduled Shanghai flights.

6. Agreement was reached at the first round of talks that

more scheduled services were required between Hong Kong, Peking

and Shanghai but it was not possible to agree details. The

outcome was badly received in Hong Kong and it is important for

confidence there that Hong Kong based airlines, especially CPA,

are se en soon to obtain a fairer share of scheduled services.

7.

Since the last round of talks, the Secretary of State for

Transport has visited Peking and senior DTp

DTp officials have

recently completed the annual Civil Aviation review in Hong

Kong. The next round of talks with the Chinese will begin on

11 November in London.

Dragonair

8. Since the signing of the Joint Declaration a number of new

airlines have been formed in Hong Kong. Of these, the most

significant, and the only one to have obtained an airline

operator's certificate and actually operate an

Dragonair.

Dragonair's origins

are murky

aeroplane,

is

but they are

CONFIDENTIAL

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