An Assessment of the Ramifications of the Open Skies Agreement on Small and Developing Nations

Many countries have agreed to strategic alliances including the Open Skies Agreements (OSAs) over the past decade to either become competitive within the global market or to simply become competitive in the tourism sector. The countries that enter into these agreements do so with the hope of becoming more established, profitable and stable in the world arena. What is unknown about the Open Skies Agreements is how beneficial these agreements are to smaller countries and to those countries that are in the developing phase who operate a government owned carrier. The literature shows that the disadvantages are vast and a suggestion is placed for these nations to resist the -one size fits all -strategy that is currently being applied to all partners. Market access, designation, capacity and tariffs are four main components that ensure the airlines\u27 survival and many state-owned carriers are unable to garner and stabilize these components; hence they must find other ways to procure survival