International Air Transport Agreements – History, current issues and a discussion of new horizontal agreements between EU and RoW

Abstract

We first provide an overview of the background and characteristics of international air transport agreements. In a second part of the lecture we then look at the efficiency of new horizontal air service agreements (ASAs) signed by the European Union with several countries. These agreements were signed in order to bring existing bilateral ASAs into legal conformity with the 2002 ECJ judgment on “nationality clauses” and to increase competition. Based on OAG data analyses, literature reviews and stakeholder interviews, we find that market access is hardly facilitated and hence traffic hardly stimulated in cases in which bilateral frequency limitations or other restrictions are still in place. Also, horizontal agreements have not resolved day-to-day problems EU carriers face on the operational level in countries such as Azerbaijan, Armenia or Ukraine. On voluminous short-haul open sky markets, however, especially low cost carriers (LCC) make significant use of Community carrier designation.