[photopress:American_airlines_taking_off.jpg,full,alignright]The United States is discussing a deal with China to have ‘open skies’ agree by May. This according to the U.S. transportation secretary, Mary Peters. She said, ‘We want to at least have the basic framework in place by May.’
This is a very contentious area. Very few countries have an ‘open sky’ policy, partly because it allows some quite shonky airlines to fly in its air space. Partly because it loses a degree of control of who can and who cannot fly there. Partly because American airlines want to test the market — using the host country’s money.
It also sends a massive boost of tourism as soon as it is signed shortly followed by an intense price war between the carriers.
U.S. carriers lobbied aggressively for the one new route that was awarded this year. It went to United Airlines, which started the first direct service between Beijing and Washington last month.
(Having been at the receiving end, no-one lobbies more aggressively than the Americans. Take their deals with the EEC. The United States insists that each country in the European Union be treated as a separate entity even though the EEC is sort of comparable with the United States. So it would be logical to equate one of the states in the USA with one of the countries in Europe.
Not a bit of it.
The American negotiators right from the get go say that ‘is not on the negotiating table.’ What they do not say is that they are there to take and not give — but that is basically the idea.)
Once they get the rights they then play a rat cunning game of having an experiment paid for by the other country.
A simple example would be American Airlines and Lyons. Might be a good idea to fly there thought the management of American Airlines. They talked the Lyons tourist board to spend massively over-budget promoting this flight in the United States. Then, after six months, the same management decided it was not building fast enough and just stopped the flight.
It took Lyons three years to recover from the hit it made to its economy.
So ‘open skies’ sounds like an even playing field. Typically it is anything but.
On the other hand despite strong demand, there are an average of only 11 daily nonstop flights between China and the United States. By comparison there are 55 daily flights between the United States and Germany, with which Washington has an ‘open skies’ deal. Mary Peters said, ‘Both senior Chinese officials as well as senior American officials have indicated that a liberalized aviation agreement is something that we want to accomplish in the short term.’
Source: International Herald Tribune