Aviation Policy in South East Asia: Alliances, “Open Skies” Bilaterals and Regional Airline Markets

Abstract

The forces for liberalisation of aviation markets are becoming more and more compelling under the relentless pressure of the economics of the industry. The world’s largest airlines are consolidating their relationships within alliances to give them global coverage and the USA has used this as a lever to negotiate open skies air services agreements. In South East Asia, carriers from the USA now enjoy more advantageous rights to carry passengers within the region than the region’s own carriers. Possibly, the response will be for individual nations to negotiate liberal bilateral agreements with each other. However, already there are several initiatives designed to create a competitive, regional airline market. This paper describes these forces and makes observations about the impact they will have on the development of intra-regional airline service. In particular, we raise the question what South East Asia can learn from experiences with single aviation markets elsewhere, particularly Europe. Inter-related questions concern the benefits that can be expected to flow from a single market, whether the regional airline market is a step towards a more liberal, multilateral framework, whether a particular group of economies is optimal for the airlines and whether new members will be permitted to join.