I recently received an email from a major U.S. airline asking me to support their bid for service to Shanghai, China.
What’s up with that? Why does the DOT restrict this? Is a lack of competition for international flights in the best interest of consumers somehow? This seems like the kind of thing that harms me in two ways. One, I may have less choices for international travel. Second, how does the DOT decide which airline gets to make all the money from these flights? That sends up some corruption / corporate lobby with undue influence flags…
It wouldn’t be the only such restriction. The Bermuda Agreement restricts the number of carriers operating from Heathrow to America, and has created the farcical situation that BMI has entered the transatlantic market with a route from Manchester to Chicago, but can’t do so from its main hub at Heathrow.
Well, it all has its origins in the Four Freedoms of Flight. You see, the US does not have to give China the right to take people to and from (say) Chicago. As a practical matter the US will not grant that privilege unless the US gets a roughly equivalent route.
OK, so the US and China agree in principle to exchange routes. Now which American airline gets the goodies? Your airline wants to get a route from China to Chicago, another wants the route from China to Los Angles.
Your airline is trying to tilt the game in its favor.
International flights are regulated by treaties and multi-lateral agreements, not by the free market. As Paul noted, the U.S. doesn’t have to give China the right to fly into a U.S. airport, and vice-versa.
So the two governments will work out an agreement, let’s say, for one Chinese flight to a U.S. city per day, and one U.S. flight into a Chinese city.
If a particular country has one more than airline willing and able to fly that route, someone will have to decide who gets it and who doesn’t.