New | Jetstar bid for Hong Kong licence rejected
Aviation regulator rules out granting licence to joint-venture airline, saying it does not have its principal place of business in the city
The government has dashed Jetstar Hong Kong's hopes of becoming the city's fifth airline, saying it does not qualify as a local carrier, three years after the Chinese-Australian joint venture was formed.
The Air Transport Licensing Authority, which held a public hearing on the proposed budget airline's principal place of business, gave its ruling on Thursday after four months of deliberation.
"Atla decides that Jetstar Hong Kong does not have its principal place of business in Hong Kong and hence refuses [its] application for licence," it ruled on the airline owned equally by Qantas Airways' Jetstar Group, China Eastern Airlines Corp and Shun Tak Holdings.
Jetstar Hong Kong chief executive Edward Lau said the company was "extremely disappointed by the decision" and would weigh its next course of action.
The airline, which had planned to launch in 2013, faced fierce resistance from the city's four airlines, led by Cathay Pacific Airways, which argued the new airline's ultimate control lay with Jetstar in Australia, making it ineligible as a local airline under the Basic Law.
"Even [though] there is no dispute that the day-to-day management would be conducted in Hong Kong and managed by the Jetstar Hong Kong CEO in Hong Kong, as the cases unequivocally indicate, that is not sufficient to establish and meet any principal place of business criteria," Atla said in a 153-page ruling.
In its reasons for the decision, the authority for the first time outlined criteria for the principal place of business, a legal grey area with no clear definition that has been at the centre of the debate.
