TNAG-2846-FCO40-4099-Air-services-agreement-between-Hong-Kong-and-Vietnam-1993 — Page 5

At the RAN meeting the President held meetings with all the interested parties, the aim appearing to be reinstatement of the airspace as it was 18 years ago. We agreed that the contingency plan under which the airspace was managed by Hong kong and Thailand should be discontinued and in fact made the proposal to the ATS committee. However on the grounds of safety and operational efficiency we insisted that a working group of specialists should be established to develop the airspace management operational requirement. This was on the grounds that a flight information region bears no relationship to territorial rights and is instigated to assist aviation. Once the president had left the meeting we were successful in our objectives a working group was formed during the meeting and established the Southern FIR boundary. Since the meeting working group was unable to reach agreement a working group has been formed to develop requirements for the northern boundary with Hong Kong and China. The UK objectives to develop the requirement before implementation is therefore following the course we would have expected ICAO to have aimed at.

The disappointment at this meeting was the fact that the chairman of the ATS committee was totally controlled by the ICAO secretariat. With ICAO driving he appeared to ignore the wishes of the majority of the meeting endeavouring to shut the door on any working groups or discussions of the airspace management. Key aviation states with experts on their delegations such as Australia and the United States refused to become involved in any discussion, probably due to a request from the president, but that is a pure guess. The Secretariat aim, driven by the president, was to reactivate the airspace without any thought being given to the need or the ability of Vietnam to provide a service compatible with other states. This must be one of the worst examples of ICAO totally ignoring the needs of aviation in particular safety.

We would not wish to see ICAO pressurising states in this manner in the future and believe a few words of guidance to the secretariat on their international role as supporting and assisting states to reach objectives would be worthwhile.

Yours sincerely,

R. Mills

I. R.

I MILLS

Manager, International ATS Engineering Services

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