Airlines obeying zone rules
Print Edition
Japanese airlines said yesterday they would obey China’s rules when they overfly the East China Sea.
All Nippon Airways said that since Sunday it had been submitting flight plans to Chinese authorities for any plane that was due to pass through China’s Air Defense Identification Zone, which includes islands at the center of a bitter row between Tokyo and Beijing. Its affiliate, Peach Aviation, said it was doing the same “for now.”
The announcements came after Japan Airlines had said that it was complying with rules China set down at the weekend, effectively giving it control over the airspace above a swathe of the East China Sea.
The zone covers the Diaoyu Islands, where ships and aircraft from the two countries already shadow each other in a game of cat and mouse.
The United States earlier came out forcefully in Tokyo’s favor by affirming that the Diaoyu Islands fall under a US-Japan security treaty.
“This announcement from the Chinese government was unnecessarily inflammatory,” White House deputy spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.
Japan’s Transport Minister Akihiro Ota said the Chinese declaration was “not valid at all” and called on Japanese airlines to ignore it.
But Japan’s main aviation companies had already acquiesced.
“We have taken the measures in line with international regulations,” an ANA spokesman said. “Safety is our top priority. We have to avoid any possibility of the worst-case scenario.”
In Taipei, an official with Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration said Taiwan’s airlines would abide by the rules of the zone, with flight plans forwarded to aviation authorities on the Chinese mainland.
But Korean Air and its South Korean rival Asiana Airlines said none of their planes was reporting in advance to China.
“There will be no changes in our operations until there is a new policy guideline from the transportation ministry,” a Korean Air statement said, in comments echoed by Asiana.
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