Security 'no excuse' for Open Skies delay 

An EU-US "open skies" deal would bring together the world's two largest aviation markets, which represent more than 60% of global air traffic. 

The EU expects that an agreement would generate an additional 8 billion euro per year in economic benefits due to increased competition and the creation of additional routes. However, the conclusion of a deal has been stalled over business and security concerns in the US about allowing foreign companies to control US airlines. 

Security issues are at the root of various tensions in the aviation sector between the EU and the US. A full-scale crisis over the Atlantic loomed over the summer as EU and US negotiators failed to make progress on the renegotiation of an agreement relating to the transfer of passenger data, ruled illegal by the ECJ, before the set 30 September 2006 deadline. 

According to the International Air Traffic Association (IATA), failure to conclude a deal by that date could have resulted in grounding 100,000 travellers per day. However, officials from both sides announced on 25 September 2006 that they are ready to sign a new deal before the deadline runs out. 

According to press reports, the agreement would resemble a provisional extension of the previous one - still requiring EU airlines to pass on more than 30 pieces of information such as dietary requirements, credit card details, family links and addresses – but under a different legal basis so as to satisfy the ECJ. 

Giovanni Bisignani, Director General and CEO of IATA said: "Failure to liberalise the air transport sector is delaying the recovery of a sick industry,” pointing to the US-EU negotiations on open skies to start the liberalisation process. 

He rejected arguments for safety and security as excuses not to liberalise: "There is no valid national-security argument for national-ownership rules. Why should airlines be treated differently than the strategic sectors of telecoms or banking?”  

Martin Broughton, European chairman of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue and chairman of British Airways  said that the twin issues of terrorism and globalisation have combined to put up new barriers to efforts to negotiate an Open Aviation Area “faster than we can tear them down". He predicted that concluding an open-skies agreement between EU and US aviation industries “could take up to seven years” if the US fails to recognise that “barrier-free aviation coincides with American capitalism and free trade”. 

He said that security issues should not divide the EU and the US because “[We] are in this together. We face the same threat to the same passengers, traveling on the same airlines, using the same aircraft, on the same routes, from the same airports." He therefore encouraged the EU and US to establish see a single transatlantic system for screening passengers. 

Jeffrey Shane, under-secretary for policy in the U.S. Department of Transportation warned of "serious repercussions" if the two sides fail to move ahead with the agreement. "We would put in jeopardy the economic benefits of fifteen bilateral open-skies agreements, defer open-skies with ten additional partners, and once again fail to remove the regulatory impediments to more competitive service at London's Heathrow and Gatwick Airports. If we lose the current open-skies agreements, we face the very real prospect of dismantling the US-EU airline alliance structure that provides so much international aviation competition today, as well as the emerging cross-border airline mergers." 

EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot said: "I still hope that between now and the end of the year we will be able to advance in a first stage toward an open-skies agreement, but there are serious difficulties…I cannot agree to legislation under which European companies cannot have effective control of investments they would be able to make in US companies."