International air transport has grown at a staggering rate over the last 50 years and the industry which supports it, now bears little resemblance to that which existed even twenty-five years ago. As the number of operators and the size of their respective fleets have increased, so too have the pressures on the infrastructure which support them. Particularly affected are the major airports where runway, apron and terminal capacity are limited. Unlike other elements of the aviation infrastructure, airport capacity is physically constrained and therefore capacity increases can only be obtained through further development or through more efficient uses of existing resources. As the first option is politically controversial and the latter only provides for incremental increases, the air transport industry, through IATA, has developed an allocation mechanism to distribute available capacity based on historic precedence. This thesis reviews the main issues surrounding the current regime. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

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Recently, air transportation has been increasing considerably. If that trend continues, there could be a major accident once a week by the year 2010. European States first joined their aviation policies for geographical and economical reasons. To that end, following the American deregulation, they started liberalizing their air transport. Today, they also work on the safety aspects of this activity. Together with the European Community and the DGCA's, three organisations have a relevant function in the regulation of safety: they help States to coordinate new preventive actions. Furthermore, in order to unify the measures that are currently implemented, a discussion on a single European aviation safety authority has been raised in the last few years. / In the course of this thesis, the above-mentioned topics will be studied, whereby a preliminary chapter will focus on the origin of the unification of European air transport and the liberalization aspects, and the three following chapters will review the institutional and legal aspects of the safety of European air transport.

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