Hello everyone, have you all had a good rest during the National Day holiday? Are your outgoing friends stuck on the road? Hope it doesn’t take long. However, if you can use the time of the traffic jam to review the article on air transportation knowledge, I believe this time will not be wasted in vain.
Today, we have brought you new knowledge. I believe that everyone has heard the word air rights. But in fact, how many air rights are there, and what each air rights say, do you know? Today, I will take you to a positive understanding of various air rights.
Traffic rights, the popular English expression is: Traffic Rights. The most orthodox name is Freedoms of the Air. Literally explained, it is the “degree of freedom” of aviation. These air rights were established in 1944 at an international gathering in Chicago (known as the Chicago Convention) to establish uniformity in commercial aviation and allow international flight to be governed by rules. Most countries in the world exchange first and second freedom rights through the International Air Service Transit Agreement. When there is a need to use other air rights, it is usually established between countries through the development of bilateral or multilateral air service agreements. After the Chicago Convention, the United States called on all countries to work together to formulate more suitable traffic rights, but other airlines are not stupid. They are afraid that because there are too many American airlines, the traffic rights policy will be inclined to the United States, or the airline The power will be dominated by American Airlines. So there was no meeting after that to discuss more air rights.
At present, it is precisely because of the different air rights that we can see other countries’ aircraft in China, or, in other countries, we can see Chinese aircraft. But not every plane docked at a Chinese airport has the same traffic rights. So, how many air rights are there? How is each air rights explained and what does it contain? Don’t worry, let’s take a look at it one by one now.
First of all, we must make it clear that there are 9 international traffic rights stipulated by ICAO, of which only the first 5 traffic rights are stated in the Chicago Convention and are officially recognized in international agreements. The navigation rights starting from the sixth air rights are added later. These air rights are only recognized by some countries, and some air rights are only implemented in some countries. Let’s take a look at the instructions on Wikipedia.
Explains Traffic Rights (Source from Wikipedia)
The specific content is actually what I just said. If you are interested, you can click on the picture to see the big picture. If you can’t see clearly or see it hard, just read the content I wrote.
Then, let’s take a look directly at ICAO’s interpretation of various traffic rights. Also included below is ICAO’s interpretation of those freedom rights starting from and including the sixth freedom right. The screenshots below are from ICAO’s official website.
ICAO explanation of Traffic Rights (Source from ICAO official site)
In order to make it easier for everyone to view it more clearly, I have painstakingly copied them one by one and presented them in the form of a table. For this sake, give a like and retweet it.
| 1st right | the right or privilege, in respect of scheduled international air services, granted by one State to another State or States to fly across its territory without landing (also known as a First Freedom Right). |
| 2nd right | the right or privilege, in respect of scheduled international air services, granted by one State to another State or States to land in its territory for non-traffic purposes (also known as a Second Freedom Right). |
| 3rd right | the right or privilege, in respect of scheduled international air services, granted by one State to another State to put down, in the territory of the first State, traffic coming from the home State of the carrier (also known as a Third Freedom Right) . |
| 4th right | the right or privilege, in respect of scheduled international air services, granted by one State to another State to take on, in the territory of the first State, traffic destined for the home State of the carrier (also known as a Fourth Freedom Right) . |
| 5th right | the right or privilege, in respect of scheduled international air services, granted by one State to another State to put down and to take on, in the territory of the first State, traffic coming from or destined to a third State (also known as a Fifth Freedom Right). |
| ICAO characterizes all “freedoms” beyond the Fifth as “so-called” because only the first five “freedoms” have been officially recognized as such by international treaty. | |
| 6th right | the right or privilege, in respect of scheduled international air services, of transporting, via the home State of the carrier, traffic moving between two other States (also known as a Sixth Freedom Right). The so-called Sixth Freedom of the Air, Unlike the first five freedoms, is not incorporated as such into any widely recognized air service agreements such as the “Five Freedoms Agreement”. |
| 7th right | the right or privilege, in respect of scheduled international air services, granted by one State to another State, of transporting traffic between the territory of the granting State and any third State with no requirement to include on such operation any point in the territory of the recipient State, ie the service need not connect to or be an extension of any service to/from the home State of the carrier. |
| 8th right | the right or privilege, in respect of scheduled international air services, of transporting cabotage traffic between two points in the territory of the granting State on a service which originates or terminates in the home country of the foreign carrier or (in connection with the so- called Seventh Freedom of the Air) outside the territory of the granting State (also known as a Eighth Freedom Right or “consecutive cabotage”). |
| 9th right | the right or privilege of transporting cabotage traffic of the granting State on a service performed entirely within the territory of the granting State (also known as a Ninth Freedom Right or “Stand Alone” cabotage). |
| Source: Manual on the Regulation of International Air Transport (Doc 9626, Part 4) |
These dry texts are usually dull to read and may not be easy to understand. So now, I will explain the meaning of each traffic right one by one in combination with the explanation diagrams provided by Boeing about the traffic rights. Special Note: In the following explanations, “Country A” refers to the country to which the airline belongs, that is, its home country.
First Freedom
Explanation: The right of a scheduled international flight from country A to overfly the airspace of country B.
That is, an airline can take off from its home country and fly over the airspace of another country. If it were represented by a picture, it would look like this:
1st freedom of air
Second Freedom
Explanation: The right to a scheduled international flight departing from country A, landing in country B and making a non-transportation action (usually called a technical stop).
Everyone has heard of the technical stopover. It is a kind of traffic right to land in another country, but not unload the cargo, not unload passengers, nor pick up the cargo or pick up the passengers.
2nd freedom of air
Third Freedom
Explanation: The right to transport passengers, goods, etc. from home country A to another country B.
This is an ordinary one-way traffic right. It is as if CZ departs from CAN and transports goods to FRA right. Note that this is one-way. Third freedom rights only permit carriage from A to B.
3rd freedom of air
Fourth freedom
Explanation: The right to bring passengers, goods, etc. from another country B back to the motherland A.
The fourth freedom rights and the third freedom rights echo. This time it is the right to transport things from other countries back to the motherland. So now everyone sees that CZ can not only bring goods from CAN to FRA, but also can bring goods from FRA back to CAN, which means that CZ has obtained both the third and fourth air rights.
4th freedom of air
Fifth freedom
Explanation: (sometimes called overflight rights – Beyond Rights). The right to take passengers and goods from home country A on a scheduled international flight, drop passengers and goods at destination B, and carry new passengers and goods to another international destination C.
This traffic right is relatively powerful. Usually in China, few airlines can get the fifth traffic right. As far as I know, ET has the fifth freedom right now. Because he can take off at ADD, unload at CAN, load, and then fly to Europe.
5th freedom of air
Sixth Freedom
Explanation: (combination of third and fourth freedom rights). The right to a scheduled international flight carrying passengers, cargo and cargo between two foreign countries (B and C) with the aircraft landing in home country A en route.
This is also easy to understand, as if LH took off at CAN, then returned to FRA, and then flew to CDG (the same aircraft). This is the performance of sixth freedom.
6th freedom of air
Seventh Freedom
Explanation: A scheduled international flight departs from a foreign country B, bypasses its home country A, and drops off passengers and cargo at another international destination C.
The so-called “bypass” means flying directly to destination C without going through home country A. This is a little difficult to understand, but if you can think of the previous charter flights, many of them actually operate like this. For example, a long time ago, there was an airline called Emerald Airlines (JI), which is now bankrupt. Let’s take this flight as an example. JI had a voyage at that time, SZX-AMS. JI was an asset belonging to LH at the time, so the aircraft also belonged to Germany. This plane took off from SZX and flew directly to AMS without passing through Germany. This requires the use of seventh freedom.
7th freedom of air
Eighth Freedom
Explanation: The right to take passengers and goods to another place in the same country with a scheduled international flight departing from home country A, somewhere in country B.
This traffic right is also called Cabotage or Consecutive Cabotage. It is more common in Europe, because Europe has a large part of the European Union, and in the European Union, crossing the border does not need to go through customs, so the cross-border transportation in the European Union is relatively simple. Now I can’t find an example and can only make up one. Suppose there is a flight from CZ, and the voyage is CAN-FRA-MUC. Then the eighth freedom right applies to this flight. Because in this example, CZ belongs to China, takes off from CAN, goes to FRA in Germany, and then flies to another point in Germany, MUC. You need to use the eighth freedom. (Again, this example is made up by me, not real)
8th freedom of air
Ninth Freedom
Explanation: A scheduled international flight belonging to a specific country A takes off from a foreign country B, and carries passengers and cargo from one part of the country B to another within the country B.
Also known as the “Stand Alone cabotage”, this traffic right has no direct relation to the home country of the scheduled international flight. The difference between the ninth freedom and the eighth freedom is whether it needs to take off in the motherland A. The eighth freedom must take off from home country A, while the ninth freedom does not.
9th freedom of air
In practice, we know that for a normal commercial flight, he will apply for the third and fourth freedom rights at the same time, and rarely apply for the third or fourth freedom rights alone. Because the cost of flying empty planes is very high, whether it is an outbound or a return journey. It must be ensured that each voyage is fully loaded in order to be profitable, and it is possible to cover the cost of r.
The eighth freedom rights and the ninth freedom rights usually only stipulate a specific flight distance and are implemented in a specific country. At the same time, as far as I know, the United States prohibits the enforcement of these two air rights.
Okay, having said that, have you all been clear about the various air rights? Hope everyone can gain knowledge from it. So, see you next time.