A structure conduct performance assessment of alternative Canada-United States Air Services Agreements

Canada and the United States have the largest, bilateral trade
relationship of any two nations. Fittingly, they also exchange the
largest volume of international air travellers of any pair of
countries. The terms under which Canada-United States air
transportation are provided are set forth in the Canada-United States
Bilateral Air Services Agreement. The current Agreement was founded
upon the consumer demands and industry operating practices that
prevailed in 1966. Although the Agreement was substantially modified
in 1974, the essence of the regime has been rendered obsolete by the
developments of transborder airline market characteristics. Canada and
the United States have recognised that a
new bilateral air services
agreement is a necessity.
Three general strategies have been proposed as the bases for a new
regime: the specified rights option, the open border option, and the
cabotage rights option. Specified rights is the genre of the current
regime: all routes having entry strictly controlled. The open border
option would entail complete freedom for either country’s carriers to
contest all transborder routes. Cabotage rights allow carriers to
contest any market within or between the two countries.
A new agreement has yet to be achieved. The delay in finding an
acceptable scheme has been the difficulty in meeting both major objectives for the new policy: efficiency and equity.
This report examines the alternative schemes for a new Canada-United
States air services regime. The structure-conduct-performance paradigm
of industrial analysis is utilised to evaluate the nature of the
distribution of benefits that would arise following the adoption of the
various alternatives.
The report concludes that the adoption of a phased-in, open border
regime would best meet the twin objectives of efficiency enhancement
and equity of opportunity. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/5206
Date05 1900
CreatorsRoberts, Tony Selwyn
Source SetsUniversity of British Columbia
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText, Thesis/Dissertation
Format5110989 bytes, application/pdf
RightsFor non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

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