Aviation liberalisation: What headwinds do we still face?

Journal of Air Transport Management, 2004

During their joint meeting in Skagen (Denmark) on 6-7 September 2001, the competition authorities of the Nordic countries established a task force to examine the degree of competition in Nordic and European aviation and to suggest measures to enhance it. The Task Force submitted its report, entitled Competitive Airlines, in June 2002. This paper summarises the main arguments and conclusions contained in the report. r

Transport Policy, 2015

The paper focuses on the issue of liberalisation of international civil aviation, examining how the law could accommodate a reform of the Chicago regime. It looks into the strengths and weaknesses of the most prominent legal options available to States to implement liberalisation, namely, amending the Chicago Convention, including market access in air transport in the GATS Annex on Air Transport Services, waiving the nationality clauses and concluding interregional air transport agreements. Via this process, the paper aspires to identify the optimal legal path to liberalisation. The analysis suggests that there is no single way to achieve liberalisation nor is there a shortcut. Instead, it appears that what catalyses liberalisation is the combined effect of the interplay between the various legal options. The paper concludes that, however accommodating the law might be, liberalisation occurs when economics and politics merge, an outcome which in international civil aviation appears to be a long way down the road, but certainly not out of sight.

Aviation in Focus Journal of Aeronautical Sciences, 2012

This paper is aimed at conducting a detailed analysis on the government regulation and deregulation of the airline industry in the United States of America. Given the rapid growth in size and influence of the airline business in the USA, the federal government established a set of rules and regulations to steer the industry in what was believed to be the right direction. Lack of deeper understanding of the intricacies surrounding the industry led to increasing dissatisfaction amongst the airlines. The deregulation has come as a solution for a lot of problems, but it has also been deemed as a curse for airlines and passengers alike. Through a literature review, this paper discusses the real consequences of the airline deregulation in the USA and how it has influenced how people fly in America.

1993

A critical look at the report of the National Commission to Ensure a Strong Competitive Airline Industry, including an examination of the current state of the industry and prospects for the future.

Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 2002

Much has happened in the aviation world as a consequence of terrorism since the idea for this special issue was commenced in July 2001. It is likely that we will see increased activity by the air transport research community on issues such as aviation security, safety and terminal flow analysis. Increased security at airports has escalated delays that already were a factor in total travel time for airline customers. As a consequence, the industry needs to speed up all measures that reduce bottlenecks in passenger flows through airport terminals as well as stepping up more effective yet simpler security measures. Such measures call for a collective effort of all stakeholders, aircraft manufacturers, airports, airlines, air traffic management and researchers in a wide range of disciplines. Air transport is usually considered one of the most internationalized industries in the world. Yet the industry is restricted in becoming truly globalised, by foreign ownership restrictions of airlines and the 1944 Chicago Convention creating the bilateral regime that governs international air transport. The lead article in this special issue shows the welfare benefits of liberalizing a bilateral with a single country. Given the positive results, we can only encourage researchers to examine the consumer welfare from multilateral liberalisation and the creation of liberalised international air transport areas. In this air transport special issue we present eight articles spanning many issues pertinent to globalization of air transportation. The articles can be divided into two closely linked themes: (i) globalization and liberalization; and (ii) network optimization. Topics covered in the first theme are: liberalizing air transport bilaterals, air cargo liberalization, applicability of strategic trade theory to world airline industry and new airline entry rates. The second theme covers: optimization and pricing of air traffic management, carrier pricing of connecting flights, demand distribution for revenue management and spill, and aircraft rotation in a multiple airport environment. Gillen, Harris and Oum present a model that allows the measurement of changes in equilibrium outcomes and welfare consequences of liberalizing bilateral air transport agreement. An important aspect of their work was to show that liberalizing bilaterals cannot just rely on a policy lever by removing entry restrictions if consumer welfare gains are to be realised. The authors show that majority of gains from bilateral liberalisation having pricing freedom go to the consumer and the carriers, while under frequency competition these go proportionately more to the carriers. Finally, the model demonstrates that in oligopolistic markets aggregate welfare gains are lower and carriers' rent is higher at the cost of consumer welfare gain.

Air and Space Law, 2019

The present study examines the issue of the liberalization of air transport through the lens of strategic airline alliances. Alliances are seen as a corollary to the suboptimal regulatory framework governing international civil aviation, stemming from 'the nationality rule'. The 'nationality rule' provides that majority ownership and effective control of an airline must be vested in the country that designates it. This requirement has nurtured the establishment of national airlines and has prevented the industry from consolidating out of fear that traffic rights, negotiated bilaterally between States, will be lost. What is more, it has locked States into a 'prisoner's dilemma', stalling liberalization. Airlines have reacted by forging alliances to emulate mergers and reap merger-like efficiencies. The present study examines the way that the airline industry has positioned itself strategically within the suboptimal regulatory framework in order to unleash the benefits of liberalization. It finds that the model of open skies, metal neutrality and antitrust immunity, pioneered by KLM and Northwest in 1992, has embedded a degree of de facto liberalization. Twenty-five years after its introduction, this model seems to have exhausted its liberalizing potential, threatening to lock States into yet another prisoner's dilemma. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is presently preparing a broad programme to deal with a wide variety of aspects of air transport liberalization, including airline alliances. The present study aims to contribute to the ICAO's research effort and, more broadly, to the long list of works on air transport liberalization.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

2022

The study analyses the policies implemented by the two regional bodies regarding the liberalization of the civil aviation sector and what impact that has on the intergration of the region and internal market.

2012

2003

This notable conference on compelling issues regarding opening up the transatlantic air transport market was a cooperative effort of The Dean Rusk Center—International, Comparative and Graduate Legal Studies at the University of Georgia School of Law, the Institute for European Studies at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium, and the Institute of Continuing Legal Education in Georgia. Charles Hunnicutt, Robins, Kaplan,