The International Air Transport Agreement

During the Chicago Conference the United States pressed its view that international civil aviation would be served by adoption of “Open Skies,” the concept of free flight over, to and from, and within the borders of the sovereign states repre­sented at the Conference. It should be noted that “countries,” in international treaty parlance, are known as “states,” and exclusively referred to in that way. Of all the countries represented, only the United States was in a position to do any such fly­ing. Known as the “Five Freedoms,” this concept is outlined in the following box.

The opposing view to Open Skies in 1944 was most forcefully stated by representatives of the United Kingdom. Britain believed that free and unlimited access by a foreign power to one’s country and its markets was premature. England had no significant number of transport aircraft with which to take advantage of the Open Skies concept. Given the physical and financial state of its war-torn country, it was realized that it might take some years to be in a position to compete with the United States on any kind of a level playing field. The proposed agreement that would implement the Five Freedoms, offi­cially known as the International Air Transport Agreement, informally referred to as the “Five Freedoms Agreement,” was not generally accept­able to the main body of representatives present at Chicago, and only 19 countries were willing to sign it. It was not, therefore, effective, and is even less so today as many of the original signa­tories have withdrawn from it.

The Transit Agreement

The second agreement entered into at Chicago is known as the International Air Services Transit Agreement, or “Two Freedoms Agreement.” This agreement embodies the first two freedoms, that is, overflight rights and landing rights for nontraffic reasons. Although signed by less than all conferees (100 nations had signed the “Transit Agreement” by 1992), this agreement became the basis upon which all future transit agreements would rest, and it established at least a minimum interactive relationship between the signatories. This agreement, therefore, may be considered to be one of the most significant results of the Chicago Conference.

Ш The Bermuda Agreement

While the United Kingdom was not amenable to a multilateral treaty arrangement granting access to its markets, it was realized that the relationship
between the United States and England was such that some sort of commercial aviation mutuality was in the interest of the United Kingdom. As the two most powerful leaders in the West to come out of World War II, the two governments agreed to have representatives meet in Bermuda in 1946 in an effort to reach an accord. The agreement that was reached was a compromise between the two positions previously articulated, and con­stituted the most important of the early bilateral (instead of multilateral) agreements to affect international civil aviation. The agreement essen­tially provided that

1. Fares and rates would have to be mutually acceptable to the two governments

2. Routes would have to be mutually agreed, and implicitly that there would be a quid pro quo for each route

3. Fifth Freedom rights (the carriage of traf­fic between two foreign countries without return to the home country) would be agreed on a case-by-case basis

The Bermuda Agreement became the model for future bilaterals between the United States and England and formed the model that would be used in other agreements between the United States and other foreign countries. Bilateral agreements have covered a variety of subject matters, including reciprocal recognition of pilot licenses, airworthiness standards for export air­craft, and radio communications.