Since that article, several Hong Kong businesspeople have presented their start-up plans to this columnist.

However, we won't play favourites and tell you which plans sound good, or which should be buried in the Tseung Kwan O rubbish tip.

Our motto is to give every start-up an equal opportunity to present their business proposition to the consumer and then let the market decide.

But sadly, that attitude may be too naive for anyone to take in this market.

As the government struggles with concerns over allegations of its questionable ties to big business - just look at the articles about Cyberport that have dominated recent front pages - the casual observer could wonder whether an open market really exists in this city.

To be fair, Economic Development and Labour Bureau officials have tried in recent years to instil a degree of 'progressive liberalisation' into the aviation industry.

Fundamentally, that has meant opening up some international routes for Hong Kong Dragon Airlines to enter in competition with Cathay Pacific Airways, and for Cathay to begin gaining a toehold into select mainland routes in competition with Dragonair.

On a lower level, the government gained agreement from Beijing authorities in September last year to open up 10 secondary mainland cities for operations by a second Hong Kong carrier each year.

Given that Cathay presumably is interested only in the major mainland markets - such as Beijing and Shanghai and possibly one or two similar cities down the line - that should begin to allow start-ups like CR Airways and Hong Kong Express access into the market they crave.

However, what the start-ups really need, and which the government has not yet done, is to inject any degree of transparency into the route licensing and allocation process for aspiring start-ups.

CR Airways, which finally launched its first scheduled services to Nanning last month after almost two years of operation as a charter carrier to the Philippines and Cambodia, is still in the dark over an application for licences to 10 mainland destinations lodged almost a year ago.

Several months ago, word was that the government was working on ways to streamline the licensing process and ensure that applications would be speedily processed within a set period, rather than having companies wait indefinitely.

But there is no news on when that process will be unveiled and implemented.

Nor has the government responded to calls for blanket regulations that will protect against potential anti-competitive practices in airfare pricing by airlines.

That's why Below Deck was slightly amused when the chief executive of one aspiring start-up, Steve Miller of Oasis Hong Kong Airlines, said he was not overly worried about the present competitive situation, given the government's changing attitude.

Mr Miller was a founder of Dragonair in the 1980s, a period during which it struggled mightily to secure a place in the local market.

The fledgling airline was blocked at every turn from getting rights to routes that it wanted to operate.

This resulted in some memorable public licensing hearings at which its executives traded barbs with Cathay representatives.

Dragonair did not begin to thrive until it was taken over by Cathay in 1990 and received an injection which contained the rights to the larger carrier's mainland routes.

There is a running joke within the industry that the only way to make money by starting an airline in Hong Kong is to wait for Cathay to buy it out. Let's hope that will no longer be the case.