The Australian government yesterday refused Singapore Airlines (SIA) access to the lucrative Australia-US route in the face of concerted lobbying by rival Qantas.
A spokesman for Transport Minister John Anderson said the decision was made last week after top-level discussions. Media reports said that Anderson, who had sent positive signals about giving SIA access to the prized route, was overruled by the normally pro-free trade Prime Minister John Howard.
"The issue of trans-Pacific access has been considered at the highest levels by the Australian government and it has decided that the time is not right for Singapore Airlines to be granted access to the route," the spokesman said.
He said SIA, which has been lobbying for access for three years, had not been given an indication about when the issue might be reconsidered.
SIA said it was disappointed but not surprised with the decision and would continue to fight for access to the route.
"We restate our view that the delay is a disappointment, but not surprising, given that the decision has been deferred several times previously," an SIA spokesman said in Singapore.
"Singapore Airlines is seeking the ability to compete beyond Australia in the same way that Qantas now competes beyond Singapore," he said. "We ask for a level playing field -- for consumers to be given the opportunity to make choices [on travel] between the USA and Australia."
SIA said Australian travelers and the tourism industry would be the losers from the government's decision to maintain the status quo on what it described as one of the most protected air routes in the world.
SIA recently released details of a report it sent to Canberra which claimed that giving it access to the Australia-US route would generate an extra A$126 million Australian (US$96 million) a year from US tourism spending in Australia. The report also said fares would drop and growth in demand for travel to Australia from the US would grow by 4 percent to 8 percent.
Howard, a fierce critic of Japanese and EU protectionist policies who takes pride in his free-trade credentials, telephoned his Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week to tell him of the decision.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
RSS