civil aviation

1 downloads 0 Views 89KB Size Report
secure air navigation and air transportation between countries requires .... Association (IATA) is an organization that represents and serves the world airlines ...
CIVIL AVIATION Civil aviation has unique characteristics compared with other industries: it is not only wideranging but also an instrumental force of globalization. The term civil aviation refers to the operation of any civil aircraft and related activities for the purpose of transportation by air. In other words, civil aviation covers all aviation activities except military operations. Although generally the design, development and production of a civil aircraft is considered separately as in aerospace industry, in a broader sense civil aviation and the operation of a civil aircraft refers to the design, development, production, and use of aircraft and all related activities and facilities for serving some kind of transportation activities by air. Unlike many other fields that grow domestically first and then expand to other countries, the civil aviation industry has had an international character from its beginning. This verity is partly a result of the uniqueness of air transportation. Travel through air has naturally a beyondborder character and needs some legal requirements between countries. In addition, safe and secure air navigation and air transportation between countries requires standardized special equipment, facilities and operational procedures. Another reason for the international characteristic of civil aviation is the industry’s massive need for financial investment. Generally, the domestic markets of individual countries are not strong enough to finance the needed investments.

History Civil aviation and globalization move in tandem. That means civil aviation has always fostered

globalization, while also being affected by globalization. To understand this interaction one needs to look back in aviation history. The dawn of the modern aviation industry started on December 17, 1903, with the first successful powered, controlled heavier-than-air machine flight. With that 12-second flight of the Wright Brothers, aviation was born and began to develop. The two World Wars were the accelerating phases of civil aviation. After the World Wars ended, many countries began looking to use these military aircrafts for commercial purpose, such as transporting mail, cargo and passengers. The first small airlines began carrying mail, cargo and passengers in the early years after World War I. After World War II, many countries had a large number of new airplanes and airfields equipped with the latest technology. Using these assets as a starting point, international airlines emerged and international air transport grew rapidly. Technical innovations like the introduction of turbo-propeller aircraft in the early 1950s, the introduction of jets in the late 1950s, and high by-pass and faster engines in 1970, greater size and range and more efficient unit costs contributed to the growth of the industry. All these developments made possible long-range, regular and cheaper public transportation. Combined with increased real incomes and more leisure time, the effect was an explosion in demand for air travel. Hence, air transportation became the dominant transportation mode of long-haul passenger travel, especially in developed countries. Nevertheless, international regulations were required to keep the pace of growth strong and healthy.

Regulating Civil Aviation World War I had revealed the negative aspect of aviation. The reality of aviation being a potential threat for national security brought the issue of regulating civil aviation to the international agenda. The legal framework for international civil aviation rights was initiated at

the 1919 Convention for the Regulation of Aerial Navigation (Paris Convention), which was a part of the Paris Peace Conference. As an outcome of the conference an International Commission on Aerial Navigation was established with the object of drawing up a convention on international civil aviation, and to establish uniform rules and standards for inter alia aircraft registration, airworthiness, personnel licensing, maps and charts, rules of the air and procedures for flying. Although there were some attempts to regulate aviation earlier, by the Paris Convention, the basic principle that every nation has absolute and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its defined territory was recognized. This principle was confirmed in 1928 at Havana and in 1944 at the Chicago International Civil Aviation Conference, which produced the Chicago Convention. The Convention, signed on December 7, 1944, by 52 signatory states, resulted in an international framework based largely on national interests, favoring bilateral air transport agreements over multilateral accords with respect to issues such as routes, frequency and capacity. The Convention’s achievements included an agreement by the signatories to grant each other two of the so-called five freedoms of air transport. These freedoms give states the right to fly across other states without landing and the right to land for non-traffic and traffic purposes. Later, these agreements expended to eight freedoms, but only the first five freedoms are internationally accepted and the last three have not yet been fully implemented. In the European Union (EU) the eighth freedom, known as cabotage, was adopted when the single market in air transport came into force on July 1, 1997. The Chicago Convention established the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to regulate the safety, communications, and technological aspects of international civil aviation. ICAO is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN), which is headquartered in Montreal, Canada, and is responsible for worldwide regulation of aviation. The agency is

charged with responsibilities regarding both air navigation, which relates principally to the technical and operational aspects of aircraft movement, and air transport, which relates to the transportation of passengers, baggage, cargo and mail by air. The organization serves as a global forum for member states to work together toward the safe, secure, and sustainable development of civil aviation. The prime objective of ICAO is promoting aviation safety (technical and operational safety of flight) and at the same time improving security (safeguarding civil aviation against acts of unlawful interference). The Convention is supported by eighteen annexes containing Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) to effectively regulate civil aviation. The annexes are the basic rules of civil aviation and amended regularly by ICAO. There are some other regional or international organizations that regulate civil aviation. For example, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is responsible for promoting the common standards of safety and environmental protection in civil aviation in the area. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is an agency of the United States Department of Transportation with authority to regulate all aspects of civil aviation. Every other country has its own civil aviation authority that regulates civil aviation in the country. For internationally accepted aviation system all these regulations must be in harmonization with international air rules standards.

Civil Aviation Activities Civil aviation activities, as proposed by the ICAO, include commercial air transport, general aviation, airport services, air navigation services, civil aviation manufacturing, aviation training, maintenance and overhaul, regulatory functions and other activities. Air transportation in a broad sense means travel by air, but in narrow sense it represents commercial air transportation,

especially airlines. ICAO defines commercial air transport as “an aircraft operation involving the transport of passengers, cargo or mail for remuneration or hire.” The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is an organization that represents and serves the world airlines and establishes commercial standards of the global aviation system. One of the duties of IATA is to ensure that people and goods can move around the global airline network as easily as if they were on a single airline in a single country. Today, due to code-sharing agreements, a passenger can travel around the globe with different airlines but with the same flight number on one’s ticket and without seeing one’s baggage. The other large interest area of civil aviation is general aviation. ICAO defines general aviation as “an aircraft operation other than a commercial air transport operation or an aerial work operation.” Aerial work is “an aircraft operation in which an aircraft is used for specialized services such as agriculture, construction, photography, surveying, observation and patrol, search and rescue, aerial advertisement, etc.” Airport services are another segment of civil aviation activities. Almost all aircrafts need a designed surface (land, water or ice, etc.) for takeoff and landing, so landing strips are essential parts of any transportation system. Today’s airports are more than just a place for takeoff and landing, they have various services such as banks, bookstores, gift shops, restaurants, social and cultural services, and many more. Today’s metropolitan areas need global-scaled airports to meet the needs of liberalization and globalization. Some hub airports, which connect global cities like London, Paris and Hong Kong, can serve 50–60 million international passengers in a year and in many cases these airports are in a competition to capture international connection traffic.

Impacts of Globalization Civil aviation is one of the main contributors of today’s global system. Technological developments that reduce air transportation costs have resulted in relatively inexpensive, rapid, and safe transportation of goods and people over prolonged distances. This has led to increased trade flows between continents and countries and an integrated world economy. Today, commercial aircrafts are capable of making nonstop long-haul flights. Such long-range air transportation services that link the world’s global cities has been “shrinking the world” and integrating the world economy. Civil aviation is one of the indispensible elements of today’s global economic system. Through linking prolonged distances it has also played a role in the operation and expansion of transnational corporations (TNCs). Air transportation has enabled the global flow of many new and perishable commodities and has fostered international and global commerce. Manufacturers, especially those producing perishables, time-sensitive materials like newspapers, high-value goods like microelectronics, gems and live animals like race horses, rely heavily on air transport to tie together spatially disaggregated operations. Today many manufacturers have global-scale production, supply chains and sales networks that highly depend on air transportation. By enabling easy transportation, civil aviation has linked different nations and cultures and has fostered social and cultural globalization. The extended linkages between people and places that are facilitated by jet transportation and relatively inexpensive air transport has also fostered the growth of tourism. Civil aviation is a global industry but has also characteristics unique from other multinational industries. Since World War II, international air services between countries have operated under the terms of bilateral air service agreements (ASAs) negotiated between two countries. Typically, these ASAs specified which airlines could operate between the two

countries, the routes carriers could operate (e.g., which airports they could fly to), whether carriers could offer beyond services (fifth freedom rights), limits on the frequency and capacity (seats) that the carriers could operate, and often placed controls over airline pricing. In addition to the bilateral agreements, many countries have also placed foreign ownership and control restrictions on the airlines. For these reasons, civil aviation is unique in that it remains regulated at the international level largely by bilateral agreements between governments. But especially since the late 20th century, liberalization, transnationalization, and globalization have affected international air transportation services. Air transport services have become more liberal and more commercialized, as well as borderless. Several regional and transnational ASAs that create geographically localized blocs sharing common aviation rules, such as the EU, have emerged. Bilateral ASAs have transformed into multilateral ASAs. In Asia and Africa initiatives regarding common aviation blocs have been proposed. With the advent of these changes in structure of civil aviation industry, airlines, airports and other aviation businesses have also become more borderless. Internationalization and globalization is illustrated in the civil aviation industry with the location of operations beyond national borders and the emergence of global alliances. Today most airlines are in airline partnership groups, called alliances, such as Star, Oneworld, Skyteam. These alliances enable airlines to expand their networks globally, creating a seamless network and more frequent flights for passengers. Civil aviation services like airport operations and management have also become more commercialized and borderless. Airports have become autonomous entities or even private companies. While the management and ownership structure of airports have changed, foreign ownership and management options have also emerged. Today some large airport companies operate airports around the globe while sharing their expertise with newly privatized or

commercialized airports. Likewise airport management companies have partnerships and alliances with other countries. Commercial aircraft manufacturing is one example of beyondborder or global supply chains. The high technology, expertise and finance needs of the aerospace and aircraft manufacturing industry have led to cross-cultural teaming for design, development, manufacturing and marketing. A factor that is having an increasing impact on civil aviation is growing environmental consciousness. Besides its positive contribution to the global system, civil aviation is also a part of global environmental concerns, as there is a general perception that the aviation sector may be contributing largely to environmental problems. However, today civil aviation remains a large and growing industry that is at the forefront of globalization by facilitating economic growth, world trade, international investment and tourism, and therefore it is a broad field of global studies. Ferhan Kuyucak and Bijan Vasigh See also Globalization; Air Travel; Airlines; IATA

FURTHER READINGS Button K. & Taylor, S. (2000) International air transportation and economic development. Journal of Air Transport Management, 6, 209-222. Forsyth, P. J. (2005). International aviation: Globalisation and global industry. in P. Gangopadhyay & M. Chatterji (eds) Economics of globalization (pp. 181-190), Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Hanlon, P. (2007). Global airlines: competition in a transnational industry. 3rd ed. Amsterdam: Elsevier Butterworth Heinemann.

International Civil Aviation Organization - ICAO, http://www.icao.int/ International Air Transport Association - IATA, http://www.iata.org/ Kassim, H. (1997). Globalization and the air transport industry: A sceptical view in A.Scott (ed) Globalization and fragmentation pp. 202-222. London: Routledge. Yergin, D., Vietor, R. H. K. & Evans, P. C. (2000). Fettered flight: Globalization and the airline industry. Cambridge M.A.: Cambridge Energy Research Associates, Inc.