subject: Airlines Freedom Of The Air [print this page] When we glance through the morning paper, sometime we come across the news that an airline is given the sixth freedom to fly to our holiday destination. The term freedom or "Freedom of the Air" is a widely used among the commercial airlines. It is a set of flying rights negotiated and given to foreign airlines intending to fly to a country.
The term can be misleading to the general public, as it does gives an impression that there are freedoms given for airlines to fly to the country of their choice. In actual case, it was intended to provide structured and restricted agreements between any two countries negotiating for the airlines landing rights.
The landing rights forms a part of the country's trade agreement and negotiations are normally made and traded in conjunction with other commercial interests. It is not uncommon to find landing rights are given in exchange for a set of fees, based on the number of passengers on the flight. You may also find the right is exchanged with a certain purchases of commercial goods, for example an airline was given a commercial flying right in exchange for a purchase of aircrafts from a specified country.
This term was formulated at the Chicago Convention in 1944. It was to restrict the bilateral negotiations made between any two countries to a set of six different flying rights. This was opposite to what was proposed USA, where US wanted an open agreements and the terms were to be mutually agreed by the signing parties. The majority of the signatory states were not comfortable with the economic might of US carriers (airlines) and there were fears that an open agreement would give the undue advantage to USA.
The summary of the terms of the agreement is given below:
1. First right -The right to over fly a foreign country. This is almost automatic, as it was agreed by all signatory states to grant the freedom to overfly.
2. Second right involves the right to land in the foreign country for non-commercial reasons such as for fuel and maintenance or repairs.
3. Third right is about the right to land in foreign country to discharge cargo and passengers from the home country. (Home country is the country of the origin of the airline).
4. Fourth right is the right to pickup commercial cargo and passengers at the foreign country and transports them back to the home country.
5. Fifth right - the right to fly into a foreign country to discharge and pick up passengers and cargo destined to another foreign country.
6. Sixth right is the right to fly and pick up commercial passengers and goods destined to another foreign country.
The seventh and eight freedoms are not commonly used by airlines. They were formulated at a later dates.
As the flying right is part of the country's trade agreement, it is negotiated between the governments and form a part of the general trade agreement. The right to fly would be given by the government to the selected airline based in the country.
