Newest Open Skies Proposal - NAFTA style

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Newest Open Skies Proposal - NAFTA style (see Majors)

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[Rez O. Lewshun]

see my reply

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

United States Hails Aviation Pact with EU as Win for Both Sides

Chief U.S. negotiator views it as a harbinger of further liberalization
By Andrzej Zwaniecki
USINFO Staff Writer

Aviation agreement will allow U.S. and EU airlines to fly between those countries with no restrictions. (© AP Images)


Washington – An aviation agreement between the United States and the European Union (EU), just endorsed by EU transport ministers, goes a long way toward liberalization of the trans-Atlantic air services market, U.S. officials say.
The Bush administration has welcomed the unanimous March 22 decision of 27 EU transport ministers to approve the draft U.S.-EU open skies agreement, which will deregulate the largest aviation market in the world. Air traffic on trans-Atlantic routes represents 60 percent of the global aviation market.
“Tearing down regulatory barriers allows us to foster more affordable and convenient air travel and gives our airline industry more opportunities to compete, innovate and thrive,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters in a prepared statement.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State John Byerly hailed the pact as a “major breakthrough in trans-Atlantic relations.”
It “is an example, and we hope a harbinger, of what the EU and U.S. can accomplish, working together to achieve market liberalization on an unprecedented scale,” he told reporters during a teleconference.
The deal will allow U.S. and EU airlines to fly between any city in the EU and any city in the United States with no restrictions on the number of flights, aircraft, routes or prices. It also will open to competition London’s Heathrow Airport, where landing rights have been restricted to two British and two U.S. carriers. In addition, EU investors will be able to own and control air carriers from almost 30 countries outside the EU that have open skies agreements with the United States and fly passengers between U.S. destinations and the nine non-EU members of the European Common Aviation Area.
The open skies pact is expected to lower airline fares on trans-Atlantic routes and almost triple the number of passengers on trans-Atlantic flights over the next five years, according to a study for the European Commission.
Byerly said Irish state-owned Aer Lingus may be one of the first beneficiaries of the deal because a special provision on Irish airlines will enter into force immediately when the pact is signed.
Aer Lingus plans to increase the number of U.S. cities it serves from four to perhaps 15, according to press reports.
SECOND PHASE CAN FURTHER DEREGULATION
U.S. and EU representatives initialed the agreement on March 2 after four years of negotiations. (See related article.)
Byerly said the administration is ready to sign it April 30 during the U.S.-EU Summit in Washington. If this happens, the accord will be implemented provisionally, but fully, on March 30, 2008, as requested by EU ministers, he said. Formally, the accord will enter into force when signatory countries meet certain ratification conditions.
Byerly, who negotiated the agreement, said he does not expect any opposition to the deal from the U.S. Congress.
“It is simply too great an agreement to oppose,” he said. “I am enthusiastic about selling what we have done here as a huge accomplishment to Congress, airlines, labor representatives and consumers.”
As an executive agreement, the open skies pact does not have to be approved by Congress. But when U.S. and EU negotiators agreed in 2005 on the first draft of the deal, some lawmakers acted to stop the administration from meeting an EU request to scale back U.S. restrictions on foreign investors’ control over U.S. airline operations. That proposed change, viewed by EU officials as a condition for the deal to go through, later was withdrawn.
Instead, U.S. negotiators offered to allow EU investors, on a case-by-case basis, to hold more than 50 percent of a U.S. airline’s total equity – voting and nonvoting stock combined – without removing the current 25 percent limit on voting stock. Together with other “enhancements,” the offer led to a breakthrough.
Still, officials from some EU countries have expressed disappointment, saying the deal does not give EU carriers as many benefits as U.S. airlines. That view was contested vigorously by Byerly. In concession to critics, EU transport ministers decided to allow the governments of EU members to suspend traffic rights for U.S. carriers if agreement is not reached by 2010 on a second-step accord.
Byerly played down the significance of the EU exit procedure. He said termination provisions are a “standard fare” in aviation agreements.
EU carriers long have sought the right to make connecting flights between U.S. cities and relaxation of U.S. ownership law, the issues they hope to address during the second phase of negotiations, according to press reports.
Byerly said the two sides have not yet agreed on the content of that phase, scheduled to begin 60 days after the first-step agreement is applied.
But he said he hopes U.S. and EU negotiators will be able to tackle “some big issues” as the United States is committed to pursue those negotiations “in absolute good faith and in the spirit of cooperation.”
It is going to take some time, however, he said, “to build consensus among stakeholders as well as Congress to see what we can do.”
The full text of Peters' statement is available on the Transportation Department Web site.
A fact sheet on the U.S.-EU open skies agreement is available on the State Department Web site.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

 

[27 driver]

Lets just hope that the Europeans will gives us terminal space and gates as easily as we will surely give them away. I can't see how this is going to help American pilots. I guess time will tell.