This groundbreaking book offers a critical and wide-ranging assessment of the global air transport liberalization process over the past 40 years. This compilation of world experts on air transport economics, policy, and regulation is timely and significant, considering that air transport is currently facing a series of new challenges due to technological changes, the emergence of new markets, and increased security concerns.
The last few decades have witnessed substantial liberalization trends in various industries and countries. Starting with the deregulation of the US airline industry in 1978, regulatory restructuring took place in further network industries such as telecommunications, electricity or railways in various countries around the world. Although most of the liberalization movements were initially triggered by the worrying performances of the respective regulatory frameworks, increases in competition and corresponding improvements in allocative and productive efficiency were typically associated with the respective liberalization efforts. From an academic perspective, the transition from regulated industries to liberalized industries has attracted a substantial amount of research reflected in many books and research articles which can be distilled to three main questions: (1) What are the forces that have given rise to regulatory reform? (2) What is the structure of the regulatory change which has occurred to date and is likely to occur in the immediate future? (3) What have been the effects on industry efficiency, prices and profits of the reforms which have occurred to date? Liberalization in Aviation brings together renowned academics and practitioners from around the world to address all three questions and draw policy conclusions. The book is divided into five sections, in turn dealing with aspects of competition in various liberalized markets, the emergence and growth of low-cost carriers, horizontal mergers and alliances, infrastructures, and concluding with economic assessments of liberalization steps so far and proposed steps in the future.
In Africa, where poor roads, ports, and railways often constrain efficient transportation, air transport holds great potential as a lever for economic growth and development. Yet Africa has suffered several decades of inefficient air services. Uncompetitive flag carriers, set up by newly independent African states, offered primarily intercontinental flights, while the domestic air service market remained underdeveloped and underserved. The 1999 pan-African treaty on liberalization of access to air transport markets, the Yamoussoukro Decision, attempted to address these shortcomings. Yet a decade later, only partial liberalization has been achieved. 'Open Skies for Africa: Implementing the Yamoussoukro Decision' reviews progress made in carrying out the treaty and suggests ways in which the liberalization process can be encouraged. The book analyzes the completed and still-pending steps toward implementation of the Yamoussoukro Decision, both on a pan-African level and within various regions. Special focus is given to the challenges posed by the poor aviation safety and security standards that exist in most African countries. Finally, the book measures the impact that certain policy steps of the Yamoussoukro Decision have had and evaluates the economic significance of air transportation and its full liberalization in Africa. The book concludes that the process of liberalizing African air services must continue, and provides policy recommendations for the way forward.
The Principles and Practice of International Aviation Law provides an introduction to, and demystification of, the private and public dimensions of international aviation law. Unlike other global sectors, the air transport industry is not governed by a discrete area of the law, but by disparate transnational regulatory instruments. Everything from the routes that an international air carrier can serve to the acquisition of its fleet and its liability to passengers and shippers for incidents arising from its operations can be the object of bilateral and multilateral treaties that represent diverse and often contradictory interests. Beneath this are hundreds of domestic regulatory regimes that also apply national and international rules in disparate ways. The result is an agglomeration of legal cultures that can leave even experienced lawyers and academics perplexed. By combining classical doctrinal analysis with insights from newer disciplines such as international relations and economics, the book maps international aviation law's complex terrain for new and veteran observers alike.
Trade in services, far more than trade in goods, is affected by a variety of domestic regulations, ranging from qualification and licensing requirements in professional services to pro-competitive regulation in telecommunications services. Experience shows that the quality of regulation strongly influences the consequences of trade liberalization. WTO members have agreed that a central task in the ongoing services negotiations will be to develop a set of rules to ensure that domestic regulations support rather than impede trade liberalization. Since these rules are bound to have a profound impact on the evolution of policy, particularly in developing countries, it is important that they be conducive to economically rational policy-making. This book addresses two central questions: What impact can international trade rules on services have on the exercise of domestic regulatory sovereignty? And how can services negotiations be harnessed to promote and consolidate domestic policy reform across highly diverse sectors? The book, with contributions from several of the world's leading experts in the field, explores a range of rule-making challenges arising at this policy interface, in areas such as transparency, standards and the adoption of a necessity test for services trade. Contributions also provide an in-depth look at these issues in the key areas of accountancy, energy, finance, health, telecommunications and transportation services.
The debate on the future of the aviation sector and the viability of its traditional business practices is the core of this book. The liberalization of the EU market in the 1990s has radically modi?ed the competitive environment and the nature of airline competition. Furthermore, the new millennium began with terrorist attacks, epidemics, trade globalization, and the rise of oil prices, all of which combined to push the industry into a “perfect storm”. Airline industry pro?tability has been an elusive goal for several decades and the recent events has only accentuated existing weaknesses. The main concern of ind- try observers is whether the airline business model, successful during the 1980s and 1990s, is now sustainable in a market crowded by low-cost carriers. The airlines that will respond rapidly and determinedly to increase pressure to restructure, conso- date and segment the industry will achieve competitive advantages. In this context, the present study aims to model the new conduct of the ‘legacy’ carriers in a new liberalized European market in terms of network and pricing competition with l- cost carriers and competitive reaction to the global economic crises.
The core structure of the regulatory regime for international civil aviation (the ‘Chicago System’) is inter–national. The features of the Chicago System were designed in an era when the world’s airlines were State–owned, and the most pressing international concerns were for navigation and safety regulation. Economic liberalization and intense globalization since the Second World War have impacted on the industry; today, it is global. This book observes the developing governance of global aviation, taking into account the concepts of sovereignty, jurisdiction and territoriality, and the proliferation of actors and participants as partners in a global public policy network, to posit that an upgraded system of global governance for civil aviation helps to explain the emerging complex landscape for global governance of civil aviation. As evidence of the emerging, complex matrix of governance of global aviation, this book identifies and reviews a selection of contemporary, transnational economic and environmental challenges facing the globalized aviation sector, e.g. fair competition safeguards, consumer protection, noise pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and the respective ‘legal’ and policy actions taken at national level (United Arab Emirates, Qatar and People’s Republic of China), regional level (the European Union) and international level (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and International Civil Aviation Organization). The book concludes that economic and environmental regulation of international aviation, designed for an inter–national world of yesterday, evolves into global governance of aviation, which is more suited for today’s global world. This book will be of particular interest to scholars and practitioners of aviation law, competition law and environmental law, as well as in the areas of transnational law, global governance and international relations.
This book aims to provide comprehensive coverage of the field of air transportation, giving attention to all major aspects, such as aviation regulation, economics, management and strategy. The book approaches aviation as an interrelated economic system and in so doing presents the “big picture” of aviation in the market economy. It explains the linkages between domains such as politics, society, technology, economy, ecology, regulation and how these influence each other. Examples of airports and airlines, and case studies in each chapter support the application-oriented approach. Students and researchers in business administration with a focus on the aviation industry, as well as professionals in the industry looking to refresh or broaden their knowledge of the field will benefit from this book.
'Beyond Open Skies' offers a systematic comparative analysis of the legal and policy dimensions of airline deregulation by federal fiat in the United States and by supranational collaboration in the European Union. The book draws upon a variety of sources, including very recent developments in U.S. and EC international aviation law, policy, and diplomacy, to propose a genuine multilateral air transport system. It examines the potential of the 'open skies' initiative, in the aftermath of the new U.S./EC air transport agreement, to inspire a genuine globalization of the world's air transport industry in such crucial aspects as the following: cabotage; ownership and citizenship requirements; route selection; airline identity; capacity; pricing regimes; competition and public aid; regulatory harmonization; labor laws; provisions for charter and/or cargo transportation; fair operation of and access to computer reservations systems; authorization of code-sharing arrangements; alliances and antitrust immunity; and dispute resolution.