A review of commercial air policies: Identifying the gaps

Commercial Air Service Agreements remain the overwhelming focus when it comes to assessing the degree of liberalisation and deregulation in air transport markets. If individual countries are assessed for levels of traffic growth, competition and overall competitiveness, it becomes clear that there is a wide range of policy levers that can restrict markets but go way beyond the realms of official Air Service Agreements. This study provides a fresh holistic view of policy barriers restricting growth in world air transport markets by assessing non-ASA policies affecting the airline sector directly as well as levels of (de)regulation in the related airport sector. A selection of case countries provides evidence that if traffic growth, competition and resultant consumer welfare as a result of overall competitiveness are the objective functions of policy-makers, it is advisable for states to create much more comprehensive commercial air policy frameworks and more holistic measures/indices by which to benchmark levels of policy ‘liberalness’.