Paul Lewis/SINGAPORE
HONG KONG AND the USA have finally reached an agreement on a new bilateral air-services treaty, which will extend beyond the colony's 1997 hand-over date to China and promises to open up new routes in Asia and North America.
The deal comes at the end of eight years of on-off negotiations, which had threatened to leave Hong Kong without any bilateral treaty after 1997. Hong Kong's air services are now included in the UK's Bermuda 2 treaty with the USA, which will no longer apply after its hand-over to Chinese rule.
A breakthrough came in June during talks between US transport secretary Frederico Pena and Hong Kong Economic Services Secretary Gordon Siu, after a six-month adjournment. According to a Hong Kong Government source, the two sides were spurred on by the spectre of a "post-1997 treaty vacuum."
The agreement will for the first time provide Hong Kong with its own umbrella treaty with the USA. Hong Kong's existing Bermuda 2 provisions will be transferred to the new treaty, once it is approved by the Sino-British Liaison group overseeing the territory's hand-over.
New traffic arrangements included in the Hong Kong-US deal will come into force immediately, however. It opens up a maximum of 14 new US cities to Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways, six for passenger services, and the remaining eight for freight.
The 14 additional destinations will include fifth-freedom traffic rights, allowing Cathay Pacific to extend its Canadian operations to the US interior and East Coast. Until now, the airline has been restricted to the US West Coast, with rights to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.
Cathay Pacific is understood to be keen to launch a daily passenger service to New York and a freight service to Chicago, via either Anchorage, Vancouver or Toronto, but has yet to make a formal announcement. Airline managing director Rod Eddington says: "We have to consider demand, availability of aircraft and other factors."
US carriers, in return, will be given eight fifth-freedom cargo frequencies a week from Hong Kong to the Philippines, South Korea or Thailand. FedEx has been pushing to link Hong Kong into its Subic Bay-based cargo hub in the Philippines, but until now has had to rely on linehaul arrangements with TNT Express Worldwide.
In addition, United Airlines has been given the option of including Hong Kong in its daily round-the-world service, or operating seven fifth-freedom flights a week from Hong Kong to the Philippines or South Korea. It was the demand from US carriers for additional Asian fifth-freedom services and Cathay Pacific objections, which helped stall the talks.
Source: Flight International
