The Ambiguous Relationship Between Air Transport and Governments

This is a difficult subject to analyze as the interactions between governments and air transport are complex. This starts with the observation that airspace belongs to the states but that its civilian exploitation is carried out by independent operators, whether public or private. However, the latter are ultimately dependent on the sovereign power, if only to obtain exploitation rights.

The first ambiguity comes from air traffic control. This is essential, everyone will agree, and it is most often operated by state administrations whose management capacity is sometimes questionable. This is how the social management of air traffic controllers has a considerable impact on the regularity of airlines. The latter are powerless to ensure that social conflicts are foreseen in advance and that state managers are able to avoid them.

Access to airports is also largely dependent on governments, which can regulate the number of movements at leisure for a wide variety of pretexts. This can go as far as the protection of the national airline. The example of limiting the number of movements at Orly airport to 250,000 under the pretext of the environment was actually taken in 1995 to protect Air France from the probable arrival of British Airways on the airport. On the other hand, the latest limitations on European airports such as Amsterdam, Schiphol or London Heathrow respond well to environmental constraints, not to say ecological pressure.

Traffic rights are a diplomatic weapon of the first order. Since each country is sovereign, it is normal for it to grant operators the right to operate according to its national interests. This is the subject of bargaining whose results are sometimes uncertain. It is surprising, for example, to see French airlines regularly losing market share on their territory to foreign carriers. But sometimes Open Skies agreements, which are fiercely debated between groups of states, can prove to be very profitable. The case of Morocco is very interesting in this respect. After difficult times spent surviving in the face of the wave of European operators, Royal Air Maroc has finally created a Europe-Africa hub at Casablanca airport, of which it is the first user and the first beneficiary.

And then the states use their airlines as an almost obligatory instrument of influence in their necessary international trade. Having your national carrier is a mark of existence and a major economic factor. In this respect, the example of Dubai is very interesting. Once a second-tier emirate in the 1970s and 1980s, it has since become a global magnet through the development of its airport system and its iconic airline, Emirates. Since then, Dubai has passed this first milestone to become a leading economic and financial base. A country like Rwanda seems to have perfectly registered the lesson and is steadily developing its company Rwandair. The same could be said of Ethiopian Airlines, which has become a first-class standard-bearer for his country.

At the end of the Second World War, the United States largely used its two major international carriers, Pan Am and TWA, to dominate the Western world. This observation did not prevent them from abandoning them when the difficulties and perhaps their inadequacy fell on these incumbent carriers.

At its core, air travel may have become a commodity for many countries, but it is nonetheless at the service of governments. The latter also find in the customers of this type of transport a windfall to finance land transport which has difficulty balancing its accounts while air transport is obliged to do so. So instead of being supported economically by governments, it becomes a source of revenue that is blithely drained without being left with the necessary resources to finance its decarbonization, which is nevertheless being demanded loudly by political leaders.

The relationship between governments and air transport is so intertwined, so complex and so ambiguous that it is difficult to see how to unravel them. And this is undoubtedly where the main strength of this sector of activity lies.