andMr. Cluskey asked the Minister for Transport and Power if he has made any protest to the South African Government on its refusal of permission to land, within its jurisdiction, aircraft of Aer Lingus; why this permission was refused; and whether refusal will be continued.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Aer Lingus South Africa Flights.
43.
Under the Chicago Convention, 1945, which governs international air transport the granting of commercial landing rights are reserved to national authorities. Landing rights for chartered flights are normally granted or refused by national administrations, including my own Department, by reference to commercial considerations affecting the national interest, including the interest of the national airline. No specific reason has been given to Aer Lingus for the refusal of landing rights in this case. As we have no contractual or conventional rights in the matter. I do not propose to protest to the South African Government about it.
Would the Minister agree that it has been widely interpreted that this refusal was made as a retaliation against the very obvious lack of enthusiasm with which the Springboks are being received because of the policy of apartheid?
A refusal of charter flights is common enough. They have occurred before. United Kingdom operators have been refused. This step is normally taken to ensure maximum traffic on scheduled South African air services. Aer Lingus have no reason to believe the refusal was governed by anything other than commercial considerations. We have not regarded it as essential to have a bilateral agreement with South Africa, for very obvious reasons. If one has a bilateral agreement one can write into it methods of negotiating air charters; if there is no such agreement any air line can cancel charter flights, if they think their services are suffering. We have ourselves cancelled charter flights even with countries with which we have bilateral agreements.
Were any allegations made of any malpractices and could the Minister state if these charters were flights from Ireland or from other countries?
I have not got that information. Aer Lingus have stated there is no point in our taking any action. They regard this as something that can easily happen. They have not suggested there is any prejudice of any kind.
It is important to establish whether there is some suggestion of irregularity or abnormality or whether, in fact, in the absence of that, it would be a fair inference to accept what Deputy Cluskey has said as correct.
No. I have already indicated that charters have been cancelled from various other countries prior to this.
But not from Aer Lingus.
I appreciate what the Minister says, but has the structure of Aer Lingus charters brought them within the scope of these cancellations, which normally occur when there is infringement of an agreement or an attempt to go beyond it, or whether in this instance there is no such infringement or attempt to go beyond it and this cancellation, therefore, does not fall into that category and could be attributable to——
I have not that sort of detailed information. Aer Lingus accepted a contract for these charters——
From where?
——on routes in which they were not normally interested. The charter was cancelled and I have absolutely no information from Aer Lingus as to whether there was anything irregular. They represented quite clearly to us that they regarded this as comparatively normal practice. I cannot go beyond the information given to me by Aer Lingus.
Was the charter from Ireland?