After a long final round of negotiations, a new Taiwan-Hong Kong aviation pact was signed last night, just one day ahead of the expiration date of the existing pact. The new pact takes effect tomorrow.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) and Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA,
Chang Kuo-cheng (張國政), the CAA director-general and one of the negotiators in the talks, said that both Taiwan and Hong Kong had a third airline company share the new flight routes. Taiwan's Mandarin Airlines (華信航空), which is owned by China Airlines (華航) and Hong Kong's Air Hong Kong (華民航空), which is owned by Cathay Pacific, will join the Taiwan-Hong Kong flight route operation after the new pact takes effect.
"After a one year extension of the original pact, it was not easy for the two sides to overcome their differences and reach a consensus today," Chang said.
"We met a major change after the China Airlines crash on May 25. That was also a key factor. Both sides had to decide to allow a third company to join the operation," he added.
Jan Jyh-horng (詹志宏), the Director of the MAC's Department of Planning and Research as well as one of the negotiators of the Taiwan delegation, said that Taiwan's government held a meeting yesterday to talk with six domestic airline companies. Based on the performance of each airline company, Mandarin Airlines was selected to become the third company to take on the "golden route."
Jan also told the news conference yesterday that the format of the pact is consistent with international air accords, although there is no "main agreement with a supplementary agreement" style.
"The structure of the pact is the same as other international flight pact formats," he said.
As a result, Taiwan's EVA Airways (長榮航空) will add 33 new passenger flights, while Mandarin Airlines will obtain 16 new passenger flights. Those 16 flights had been slated for China Airlines before the company's Hong Kong-bound Boeing 747-200 passenger jet broke up in midair and crashed into the Taiwan Strait on May 25, killing all 225 people on board.
Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific and Dragon Airlines (港龍航空) will gain an additional 49 new passenger flights. Air Hong Kong didn't obtain any passenger flights but will share 400 tonnes of cargo per week.
The new pact will be implemented in two stages. The first stage starts on July 1 when EVA Airways will begin operating 24 new flights and Mandarin Airlines will take on eight flights. The second stage will take effect in 2004 when EVA Airways will take on an additional nine flights and Mandarin Airlines will operate eight more.
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Jan stressed that during the process of the negotiations, the government took the lead, and rejected "a private organization to private organization" negotiation.
Jan said that while Hong Kong and Chinese authorities may have regarded the talks to have been between two organizations from the private sector, Taiwan nevertheless considers the talks to have been "government-to-government" in nature since both governments had to authorize those private organizations to sign the accord.
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