TNAG-2537-FCO40-3708-Air-services-agreement-between-Hong-Kong-and-China-1992 — Page 3

CONFIDENTIAL нис

181/6

CONFIDENTIAL

FM FCO

TO ROUTINE HONG KONG

TELNO 1656

OF 2415OOZ NOV 92

INFO ROUTINE PEKING, UKREP JLG HONG KONG

15

101065 MDLOAN 2045

YOUR TELNO 1834: PRC AIRSPACE AND NON-SCHEDULED FLIGHTS TO MACAO

1. We agree that there is no legal requirement under the Chicago Convention to seek agreement from the Chinese in advance of the issuing of permits for non-scheduled flights over their airspace. As you know normal international practice is for the operator of the aircraft to file a flight plan with the CAA in the country of departure, and this is circulated to the flight information regions of the transit and arrival countries. Permission to undertake the flight is given by the departure CAA providing there has been no objection from other authorities.

2. We are not sure what the political reasons were for the 1971 advice (we would still be grateful for a copy of this), but we cannot see a good political reason why the procedure described above should not be followed in this instance. That said, we wonder whether, were we to make such a change now and the Chinese got to hear of it, the Chinese might not see it as connected in some way with Lu Ping's remarks about closing Chinese airspace to flights from the new airport. There is of course no connection but is it in our interests to sow any seeds of concern in Chinese minds about what is essentially a technical matter?

HURD

YYYY

LAST P

DISTRIBUTION

47

ΜΑΙΝ

40

.AIR SERVICES

AMD

LEGAL ADVISERS

PUSD//MR HARRISON E203

PS

PS/MR LENNOX-BOYD

PS/PUS

MR CROWE

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CONFIDENTIAL