International Agreements and Organizations — Page 28, Lesson 48

I want to walk you through the commercial side of international civil aviation now — the part that governs who gets to fly where, and under what conditions. This is where we move from the technical rules of the air into the economic and political framework that makes international flying possible. The Chicago Conference, which established the framework for international civil aviation, attached great importance to one particular question: the exchange of commercial rights. The States at that conference addressed this subject, and the result was that Contracting States agreed, bilaterally — that is, between two States at a time — to grant each other certain rights regarding the commercial exploitation of civil aviation. These rights are now known as the Freedoms of the Air. The freedoms give rights to transit the airspace of Contracting States to scheduled flights. Now, here's the key point about how these freedoms came to be. Due to political and national rivalries, it was not found possible to reach a single agreement satisfactory to all 52 States at the conference. So instead, two supplementary bilateral agreements were set up. Each gave every State the opportunity to enter into agreements with other States on a 'one-to-one' basis, if that was considered desirable between those States. The first of these is the International Air Services Transit Agreement. This permits aircraft of a signatory State — a State that has signed the agreement — to fly over, or land for technical reasons in, the territory of another signatory State. So this covers the right to overfly, and the right to make technical stops — for fuel, for maintenance, for reasons that aren't about picking up or dropping off traffic. The second is the International Air Transport Agreement. This allows the carriage of traffic between the State of Registration and another signatory State. And here we need to define traffic: traffic is the carriage of mail, cargo, or passengers. So this agreement covers the actual commercial carriage — moving people and goods between States. Now let's look at the definitions you're required to know. First, a scheduled flight. This is a flight for which agreement has been reached between States at government level, concerning the schedule. That agreement covers things like how many flights would be allowed in any period, what aerodromes could be used, what time of day the flights would be allowed, and what reciprocal arrangements would be required. And here's a critical point: a State is not obliged to grant permission for an operator to operate a schedule. The State has discretion — it can refuse. Then we have non-scheduled flights. These are flights to which a schedule is not attached — one-off flights or charter flights that are not flown on a regular basis. And here's the contrast with scheduled flights: it is an embodiment of the freedoms that a State cannot refuse, on political or economic grounds, to accept a non-scheduled flight. So the State has no discretion to refuse a non-scheduled flight for political or economic reasons — that's the key difference between the two categories. Let me make sure the contrast is clear. Scheduled flights require government-level agreement on the schedule, and the State can refuse permission. Non-scheduled flights — one-off charters — cannot be refused on political or economic grounds. That's the fundamental distinction you need to hold onto. So to tie it together: the Freedoms of the Air are the rights exchanged bilaterally between States, and they're implemented through these two supplementary agreements — the Transit Agreement for overflight and technical stops, and the Transport Agreement for actual carriage of traffic. And the scheduled versus non-scheduled distinction determines how much discretion a State has in each case. That's the commercial foundation of international civil aviation.