International Aviation: Measures by European Community Could Limit U.S. Airlines' Ability to Compete Abroad - Government Accountability Office (GAO) report

International Aviation: Measures by European Community Could Limit U.S. Airlines' Ability to Compete Abroad - GAO Report

Date:	April 26, 1993
Report No.:	RCED-93-64
Pages:	76
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Subjects: Airline regulation Commercial aviation Competition Foreign governments International agreements International economic relations International travel Restrictive trade practices Belgium Denmark District of Columbia DOT Underserved Cities Program Europe France Germany Greece Ireland Airlines Summary: With nearly 30 million passengers flying to and from Europe each year, transatlantic service is the largest international market for U.S. airlines. The European Economic Community (EC), however, is changing the way that individual aviation markets of its member nations are regulated. This report assesses (1) changes to air transport regulations that the EC has undertaken; (2) the effect of those changes on competition in the European air travel market; and (3) the implications of those changes for U.S. airlines, including the possibility of granting cabotage rights to a unified EC, which would allow EC airlines to provide air service between points in the United States in exchange for allowing U.S. airlines to serve more routes in the EC. GAO notes that U.S. airlines' ability to compete in the EC could be limited by recent measures that ban non-EC carriers from dropping fares below existing ones on routes within the community and that make it harder to acquire more takeoff and landing slots.