Airlines were (and still) operate in strict compliance with traffic rules between countries known as “traffic rights” . Those rights are agreed upon on bilateral basis in ‘Bilateral Air Service Agreements’ which define how many flights can operate between two countries, to which destinations, by which airlines and, sometimes, how many seats can be sold. This system was necessary between countries especially in the world environment after World War II. Nowadays, governments are realizing slowly that this system has been a hurdle on airline development, consequently on the flow of goods and people between countries and ultimately on the state of commerce and the economy in general.
The process of liberalizing the airline traffic between countries is sometimes called “deregulation”.
