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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 1770.PDF
FLIGHT, 16 December 1955 893 BACKGROUND to STRASBOURG Europe Takes a New Look at Some Old Air-transport Problems AN international conference is in progress. The scene is a large,/^ well-lit hall, thinly occupied by perhaps 60 or 70 people, •*• -*- the majority in semi-circular, stepped-up rows of desksforming an amphitheatre. The wall behind the chairman's rostrum, which faces the rows of desks, contains glazed panels throughwhich translators and sound-controllers can view the proceedings. In the desks nearest the rostrum are seated delegates from 19European nations. Each delegation is provided with an identifying plaque and a microphone. The rows behind contain observersfrom a like number of international organizations. Furnishings are sober—beige carpeting, dark wood furniture and red-leather-covered chairs. For those who speak it fluently, English is the language of theconference. Every speech, however, is translated into four of five languages (English, French, German, Italian and Dutch), andevery delegate or observer has earphones, volume control and a channel-selector enabling him to hear the translation of his choiceor an amplified version of the original. Acoustics, heating and air-conditioning are excellent.Such is the scene, except in minor detail, at any of twenty or more forgotten international conferences. The description applies,in fact, to the first session of the European Civil Aviation Con- ference, which opened on November 29th and is still in progressat the time of writing. It is being held in the Alsatian city of Strasbourg, on the premises of the Council of Europe.In a quiet and unspectacular way, conferences of this kind can have profound effects on political, commercial and personal activi-ties in the countries represented, and yet they pass almost un- noticed. The reasons for this fact are not hard to find. In the firstplace, the pace of discussion is slow—inevitably, perhaps, bearing in mind differences of language and viewpoint—so that except forthose directly involved the intellectual atmosphere is liable to stagnate. If official observers become suffocated with boredom, itis hardly surprising that journalists tend to avoid international conferences altogether.Again, remarkably few delegates approach the conference in a truly international spirit; policies are usually founded on theinterests of one government or one national airline. Who, then, can blame the public for adopting a sceptical attitude? This particular conference could bring about a revolution ininternational air transport. Alternatively, it could prove a complete waste of time or—more probably—yield limited though not uselessresults. Whatever its outcome, the Strasbourg conference is worth a moment's study to anyone involved in civil aviation, because itmarks a positive stage in the evolution of the rules to which the game of international air transport is played. It also provides anopportunity to review those rules—the basis on which traffic rights are exchanged between nations—as they have developed to date. An unsuccessful attempt to evolve an international formula forexchanging traffic rights was made eleven years ago at Chicago, at a conference attended by representatives of nearly 70 nations.The basic problem was, of course, one of substituting a multi- lateral agreement for the complicated system of bilateral agree-ments. Two proposals were made which would have provided a very simple answer to this problem. One, from Australasia,called for a pooling of national interests in the operation of all major international routes. America, on the other hand, advocateda "free-for-all." While accepting the principle of freedom of the air as ultimately desirable, Britain successfully opposed the idea ofunrestricted competition, in the belief that civil aviation would for many years be incapable of "flying on its own," and that the desirefor prestige would produce a wasteful degree of competition at public expense. In establishing her own system of "regulatedcompetition," administered by the Civil Aeronautics Board, the United States had admitted the truth of this argument—but shefailed to appreciate the need for an international equivalent of the C.A.B., despite the fact that inter-airline competition outside The Council of Europe headquarters at Strasbourg, in which the first European Civil Aviation Conference opened on November 29th. America could be just as intensive, and often more costly, than inAmerica. According to the internationally accepted United Kingdomdefinition, "freedom of the air" can be exercised in six ways, which have come to be known as the Six Freedoms. The First Freedom is the right of "innocent passage": e.g.,a B.E.A. aircraft passing through French airspace on its way from London to Zurich.The Second Freedom—as exercised by a Gibraltar-bound Hunting-Clan aircraft stopping at Biarritz to refuel but not topick up or set down passengers—is the right to land abroad for non-traffic purposes. The Third Freedom provides for the setting-down in a foreigncountry of traffic from the country of origin of the aircraft; example: a B.O.A.C. aircraft carrying British passengers to NewYork. The Fourth Freedom covers the embarkation of foreign trafficdestined for the country of origin of the aircraft; example: a B.O.A.C. aircraft carrying American passengers from New York. The Fifth Freedom is the right to carry traffic between foreigncountries; example: a Sabena service carrying passengers between Manchester and New York. The Sixth Freedom, usually referred to as cabotage, is the termapplied to traffic within the borders of a foreign country. The K.L.M. service between Hamburg and Bremen is an example ofcabotage. The main result of the Chicago conference, so far as traffic rightswere concerned, was a virtually automatic exchange of First and Second Freedoms between all the countries who signed theChicago Convention. Exchange of the remaining Freedoms re- mained a matter for bilateral negotiation. Some of the subsequent bilateral agreements granted unres-tricted freedom of operation to the airlines of the countries con- cerned. Most, however, follow the lines of the famous compromisebetween Britain and America reached at Bermuda early in 1946. The Bermuda agreement's major achievement was that it providedfor reasonable increases in the capacity offered by airlines of either side, and for the exercise of Third, Fourth and Fifth Freedomrights, without sacrificing the principle of regulated competition. At Geneva, in 1947, an international conference was staged bythe International Civil Aviation Organization (which body was formed as a result of the Chicago conference) with the object ofdrafting a new multilateral agreement. Britain and America hoped that the Bermuda bilateral might be translated into amultilateral code for the exchange of rights. The conference foundered, however, on the rock of the Fifth Freedom. It shouldbe noted, perhaps, that Fifth Freedom rights are essential to the economic operation of a majority of long-haul services. SinceGeneva such rights have continued to be negotiated on a bilateral basis, with complications best left to the imagination. In the spring of 1954, at the suggestion of the Council ofEurope, I.C.A.O. convened an international meeting at Stras- bourg on the co-ordination of European air transport. The agendalisted a variety of problems—political, commercial and technical. Essentially, the importance of the Strasbourg conference lay inthe fact that it represented the first attempt to settle the global traffic-rights problem on a regional basis. The outcome of thispreliminary conference may be summarized as follows: — Three major recommendations were made. The first, dealingwith exchange of traffic rights for scheduled services, declared that "governments should give support to co-operative studies amongairlines aimed at the development of traffic by such measures as interchange of routes, route arrangements between two or moreairlines, relaxation of restrictions based on distinctions between
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