Air Transport and International Economic Law

Abstract

This paper examines the economic regulation of international civil aviation with a view to debunking a number of myths surrounding it. The focus is on public international law understood in its classical construct. The economic regulation of international civil aviation came about in the aftermath of the two World Wars and was marked so deeply by the prevailing conditions at the time that it has manifested extreme resilience over the years. Liberalisation is still a question mark in international civil aviation. This paper attempts to shed some light on a number of issues that may obstruct liberalisation. What it finds is that the same old issues that were discussed in the 1940s and 1950s, when air transport law was in the making, keep coming back. It seems that economic regulation has failed to address the perennial questions of international civil aviation. The paper risks making the prediction that disruptive technology will do the trick.