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International Air Transport: A Microsystem in Need of New Approaches
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2009
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International air transport is a microsystem which includes most of the variables of the international macrosystem. As Young W. Kihl has put it, for example, a functional international organization such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) operates within the milieu of the larger system, reflects the constraints of that system, and can, therefore, be examined in the context of world politics. The transport system combines political, economic, military, and important technical factors with the often contradictory objectives of international, transnational, national, and subnational actors. It is small wonder that comprehensive studies of the subject are difficult to find. None of these books is all-inclusive, but, of those which are original contributions, the range of disciplines represented in them is formidable: Included are the opinions of a political scientist (Kihl), two professors of law (Thomas Buergenthal and K. G. J. Pillai), one economist (Mahlon R. Straszheim), and a professor of international business (Robert L. Thornton). The latter two are the most policy oriented overall. Pillai concentrates on the International Air Transport Association (IATA), an association of the carriers themselves, and Buergenthal and Kihl focus on ICAO, an association of states and a specialized agency of the United Nations.
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- Copyright © The IO Foundation 1971
References
1 A “natural monopoly” exists when the most efficient size of the firm is so large relative to the market that competition cannot be relied on to produce lower prices. Many public regulatory agencies exist on this basis (mass urban transportation, telephones, power).
2 This type of “partnership” did not end there. Pan Am was involved directly in all of the negotiations which led to the route exchange (New York-Moscow) of the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. As the airline which flies the Berlin corridor it joins the policy process whenever tensions are high there.
3 For a documented summary see my Air Transport Policy and National Security: A Political, Economic, and Military Analysis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965)Google Scholar, chapter 1.
4 Before the war ended President Harry S. Truman awarded overseas routes to a number of other carriers, and, to this day, Pan Am is the only United States-flag carrier with no domestic routes.
5 The result of this bilateral conference, the Final Act of the Civil Aviation Conference held at Bermuda, January 15 to February 11, 1946 (the Bermuda agreement), has been of considerable importance to civil aviation. See Little, Virginia, “Control of International Air Transport,” International Organization, 02 1949 (Vol. 3, No. 1), pp. 29–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 It should be noted that the first two of the “freedoms” are noncommercial and were established at the Chicago conference. The remainder are informal conventions which have grown out of the bilateral system.
7 In this sense the United States government can acquire a vested interest in the profitability of the airlines of other countries which is at least equal to its interest in the profitability of its own.
8 The ambivalence of the United States policy process seems traceable to the “private enterprise” approach. Because it is not United States tradition to directly control competitive enterprises, policy statements are issued without conclusive evidence that cabinet officers have participated directly in developing them.
9 United States endorsement of the IATA, no matter how grudging, seems to preclude any major United States-flag carrier from withdrawing from the IATA and, like Icelandic Airlines, establishing its own cut-rate fares. I know of no instance of a United States carrier proposing this step, but United States reaction would be interesting.
10 This term, historically anathema to the United States, means that an airline is granted an overseas monopoly in return for its functioning as a national policy instrument.
11 Means, Gardiner C., Pricing Power and the Public Interest: A Study Based on Steel (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962).Google Scholar
12 While not significant to the international question it should be noted that “feeder” or “local service” airlines within the United States have, for the most part, required constant direct subsidy.