Paul Lewis/SINGAPORE
THE JAPANESE and the US Governments have offered different interpretations of their recent air-cargo agreement, opening the door to possible further disputes in the future.
According to Japanese transport minister Shizuka Kamei, the US Government has given a verbal undertaking to revise the original 1952 bilateral air-services agreement between the two countries, as part of the air-cargo settlement reached on 21 July.
US Transportation Secretary Federico Pena has denied this, claiming the agreement extends only to air-cargo flights, and not the wider and more important issue of passenger traffic. Follow-on talks are scheduled for September aimed at further liberalising air-cargo traffic by March 1996.
Japan had refused to grant FedEx's application for additional beyond rights into Asia until the US Government agreed to renegotiate their original 1952 bilateral air-services agreement. Japan has long argued that the bilateral agreement was outdated and unfair to its airlines.
Japan Airlines (JAL) has been pressing for a new bilateral agreement for over 18 years. In a brief statement released after the deal was announced, JAL states: "We expect the Japanese Government to make every effort to revise this outdated and unfair agreement."
Kamei and the deal have come in for criticism from the country's airline industry. "If you examine this agreement," says an observer, "it looks good on paper, but it is disturbing that there is no commitment on the US side to discuss the fundamental issue of revising the bilateral."
The air-cargo deal was announced just two days before elections to the Japanese Diet upper house, and airline officials suggest that negotiators were influenced more by domestic politics than the interests of the industry.
The deal announced on 21 July clears the way for FedEx to operate through Japan to seven different Asian destinations, as part of its new intra-Asian freight network. JAL and Nippon Cargo Airlines in return have been given an extra route from Kansai to Chicago/New York, and a beyond right to Canada.
Japanese airline officials, however, add that there is insufficient demand for the six weekly cargo flights now allowed between Kansai and Chicago, and that any beyond rights into Canada will require revision of the Japanese-Canadian bilateral agreement.
FedEx is to start operations at Subic Bay on 4 September, following the cargo agreement. FedEx's intra-Asian service had been delayed since 3 July. Limited use of Subic has already begun, and work on a new freight-sorting terminal completed.
Source: Flight International
