EoW May 2010

Transat lant ic Cable

Drawing perhaps on his experience of Canadian visitors to Old Havana, Mr Garcia told Bloomberg News, “The gringos can’t help but spend their money. They are the easiest tourists to sell to. They never ask for discounts.” While President Barack Obama is on record as seeking “a new ❈ era” in USA relations with Cuba, even as he has denounced “deeply disturbing” human rights violations by its government, he has not taken a position on the travel ban. Last year Mr Obama ended restrictions on Cuban-Americans travelling to Cuba and transferring money to relatives back home. The USA State Department has also held talks in Havana with Cuban o cials about restoring mail service and cooperation on migration issues.

some mutual concessions. But industry executives and others have expressed disappointment that no real progress was made on the key issue of removal of the remaining barriers to ownership faced by airline companies that serve the Atlantic routes. At present, the USA restricts foreign ownership of domestic carriers to 25 per cent of voting stock; the European Union, to 49.9 per cent. Ownership liberalisation was to be taken up in phase two of Open Skies, which three years ago opened up the Atlantic air lanes by permitting ights between any city in the EU and any USA city. But the International Air Transport Association (IATA) promptly asserted that the agreement hailed by the European Commission, the executive body of the EU, as an important step forward, in fact made no advance toward relaxation of the ownership rules. “The agreement was not a step backwards, but it did not move us forward,”said IATA’s chief executive Giovanni Bisignani in a statement. “The long-term nancial sustainability of the industry is dependent on normal commercial freedoms. I urge both governments to keep this on the radar screen for urgent follow-up.” If the draft deal hailed by Siim Kallas, the European transport commissioner, as “a signi cant breakthrough” did not resolve questions of ownership and investment in airline companies, what exactly did it do? According to Mr Kallas, the two sets of regulators agreed “to increase regulatory cooperation, and remove the barriers to market access that have been holding back the development of the world’s most important aviation markets.”

Aviation

Brussels andWashington build on the ‘Open Skies’ accord, but critics complain that not much new ground was broken

By the terms of a preliminary agreement, announced 25 th March, the European Union and the United States will expand on the Open Skies pact of 2007 by narrowing some di erences and making

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EuroWire – May 2010