David Knibb
Both Koreas have taken strides towards liberalisation as South Korea agrees to an open skies bilateral with the US and North Korea allows regular commercial overflights.
The South Korea-US bilateral was sealed in late April, after three rounds of tough negotiations in which Seoul successfully held out against US seventh freedoms. US carriers retain the right to change gauge on fifth freedom flights beyond Seoul into the rest of Asia, but all such flights must now originate or end in the US, effectively ending any seventh freedoms.
The allure for Korea's airlines of fifth freedom flights into Latin America helped convince Seoul to become Washington's largest open skies partner in Asia. Korea's Ministry of Construction and Transportation estimates Korean airlines will gain US$100 million in savings from the accord.
Now that Korea and Taiwan are both open skies partners with the US, more US carriers have fifth freedom access to the rest of Asia. Japan's recent US accord reduces fifth freedom tensions, but such freedoms beyond Japan are still available only to US incumbent carriers and are limited by Japan's slot restricted airports. Thus, the Korea-US open skies bilateral completes Washington's strategy for bypassing Japan and putting more pressure on Tokyo to liberalise aviation fully.
While South Korea strikes a deal with the US, North Korea has opened its skies to regular international overflights, following test flights in March. The right to overfly North Korea will shave 20 to 50 minutes off flight times. One analyst estimates this will cut fuel costs by 6 to 8 per cent on flights between the US west coast and Hong Kong.
Source: Airline Business
