The Five Freedoms of Aviation
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN links it whenever airline route rules, cabotage or loopholes come up, as a concise background explainer.
What it is
A Wendover Productions explainer on the political agreements, from the Chicago Convention onward, that determine which airlines can fly where. It lays out the five freedoms of the air.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2018 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Recommends crikli · 2018-01 · on “A personal ode to the Boeing 747”
I was rolling my eyes at the subtitle. The article devolved from there. Some great (sometimes indirect) information on why the 747 and to a lesser extent the A380 are being phased out, from my new favorite YouTube channel, Wendover Productions: The Economics of Long-Haul Flights: [LINK] ETOPS: Explained [LINK] Politics of Aviation / 5 Freedoms of Aviation: [this video]
Recommends lagadu · 2019-03 · on “US refuses to ground Boeing 737 Max”
Norwegian is technically an EU airline because despite the name they're also headquartered in EU countries. This is so because being EU-based they're free to use all EU airports to base flights out of, which they use to good extent to make flights between the US and the French Caribbean islands, something that would be impossible had they been solely HQd in Norway :) Check out this video about it (Norwegian starts at about 10 minutes in): [this video] edit: turns out they're registed in several countries, not just Denmark.
Recommends graton · 2019-09 · on “A Low-Fare Loophole for International Travelers”
The five freedoms of aviation are: 1) The right to fly over a foreign country without landing. 2) The right to refuel or carry out maintenance in a foreign country without embarking or disembarking passengers or cargo. 3) The right to fly from one's own country to another country. 4) The right to fly from another country to one's own. 5) The right to fly between two foreign countries on a flight originating or ending in one's own country. This video has a lot of good info on it: [this video] And wikipedia page: [LINK]
Cites thomaslangston · 2019-02 · on “Lufthansa Sues Hidden City Ticketholder for Throwing His Ticket”
My guess is this might be similar to how company's sue people for trademark violations, even when they are not doing any direct damage to the brand i.e. to protect themselves from future legal liability. If too many customers use the hidden city in a foreign airline flight, they might be found not be in compliance with route agreements. Some background on the subject: [this video]
Cites laverya · 2023-10 · on “Major airline faces backlash after using ghost flights to exploit legal loophole”
You can't legally sell domestic flights in a foreign country. (for these purposes, the EU is one country) This is true for Australia, for India, for the USA, for the EU - an airline like Delta can fly to Sydney from LA but not sell domestic flights from Sydney to Melbourne. (Or, for that matter, international flights between Sydney and Singapore) However, there is a catch! Airliners did not used to have quite the range they do today, and so the treaties allow things like refueling stops. And they (sometimes!) allow passengers to embark/disembark at those stops - but those passengers still have to be flying the international leg, or else it would be a domestic flight. There's a Wendover video