In 1992, the government announced plans to scrap the remaining cruises in favour of a flat payment and air fare owing to the perk being viewed as outdated. Expat civil servants and trade unions opposed this citing that the government were contractually obliged to honour their perk and challenged the plans in court. The expats challenge went to the Court of Appeal where the decision was made in their favour stating that the government could not take away contracted benefits without compensation. Following the decision, the government announced it would offer to buy expatriates out of their contracts and still provide the perk prior to the handover of Hong Kong in 1997 but would keep the offer of transferring to a local contract. It was announced that after the handover, the Special Administrative Region government stated they would honour the remaining contracts as stipulated under the Hong Kong Basic Law. However 12 days after the handover, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong decreed that any civil servants that transferred to local contracts would lose the right to sea passage in keeping with the original court judgement.
