Dominant Carrier Performance and International Liberalisation

Numerous studies on the aviation industry have confirmed that significant benefits can be brought by liberalizing the international market. After a comprehensive review of the recent studies on this issue, Fu and Oum (2014) concluded that there is strong evidence that liberalisation introduces substantial economic benefits to the countries involved. In the airline industry, liberalisation has led to increased airline competition, decreased average fares, increased frequency, improved load factor and airline productivity, increased traffic volumes and new route services. These changes not only lead to higher employment and economic output in the aviation industry, but also provide better inputs to other related sectors such as tourism, trade and logistics. Yet despite such well recognized benefits, mostly developed countries have liberalised their air service agreements, notably the United States followed by the EU. As of 2003, 57 liberalisation agreements out of 87 involved the U.S. As of October 2012, over 400 liberalized agreements were reached among 145 economies, among which more than 100 were U.S. open-skies agreements (ICAO 2013). In most other markets, air liberalisation has made limited progress over the past decades, even in regions characterized with strong economic and international trade growth.