The Istanbul Declaration and the Agenda for Freedom Summit – an opportunity for broad liberalisation. GEM working paper

At the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) 64th Annual General Meeting and World Air Transport Summit held on 2-3 June 2008, the executives of the world’s airlines resolved unanimously to pursue a campaign to eliminate certain restrictions on the ways in which carriers can operate and adapt to changes in their economic environment (box 1). This resolution was published in the form of an Istanbul Declaration. The Declaration by IATA members was followed on 26 October by the Agenda for Freedom Summit, also held in Istanbul, in which officials from some 15 economies (box 2), including the US and the EU tried ‘to find ways to expand the commercial freedoms of airlines, namely access to markets and to global capital’ (IATA 2008b).2 What might come out of the Istanbul process in terms of liberalisation? This can be surmised from a document entitled ‘A short path to greater commercial freedom for airlines’, which follows the Chairman’s summary (IATA 2008c) and will be analysed below. However, before that, the concepts restrictiveness and liberalisation in air service agreements (ASAs) and of the ALI framework, which will be used to measure the degree of liberalisation in ASAs are introduced. 1 Achard and Rupp are Research Assistants at the Groupe d’Economie Mondiale (GEM) a