American Airlines has seen its first attempt to test the boundaries of last year's US-Canada open skies agreement rebuffed by authorities on both sides of the border.
American had applied to transfer Northwest's spare Detroit-Vancouver frequencies to Chicago, with the service to be operated by its alliance partner Canadian Airlines on a codeshare basis.
The application was rejected in early September by the US Department of Transportation. Instead Northwest's bid to transfer the frequencies to Los Angeles and have them operated on a codeshare basis by Alaska Airlines was approved.
However, the case has highlighted uncertainty over the ability of carriers to codeshare on routes to the three Canadian cities where access remains restricted. The cap on US carrier frequencies to Montreal and Vancouver ends in February, with Toronto access restricted until 1998.
The creation of Canada's new Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) in July was not accompanied by a clarification of the old National Transporttion Agency's criteria for codeshare approval. This required both carriers to have underlying traffic rights and prevented the transfer of routes unless the service was operated by the original carrier.
Both Canada and the US expect this policy to continue, but American's application arrived at a time when the issue remains unclear. It has already used up its DOT route allocation on restricted routes with services from New York and Miami. American says underlying rights can be conferred from a codeshare partner, but this has been rejected by DOT and the CTA.
D Cameron/D Knibb
Source: Airline Business
