Background: This paper looks at how ongoing attempts to improve air market competitiveness in Europe are challenged by the differing internal and external realities that exist. Europe's internal multilateral single air market has encouraged the proliferation of pan-European airlines unhindered by national borders, which have stimulated increased competition and driven down airfare prices. Meanwhile, externally the bilateral system continues to dominate the wider global airline industry and a number of countries still prefer to negotiate air access with individual European countries.Methods: Data from a five stage mixed-method Delphi study underpin the paper. Qualitative data, collected at a first stage brainstorming workshop and during final stage in-depth interviews, were thematically analysed to locate key and sub-themes. Quantitative survey data were collected across the remaining stages and were statistically analysed with mostly t-tests and chi-square tests of association to a 95% confidence level.
Results:The key theme transferability of the European regional single air market emerged from the study data; supported by the three sub-themes EU regional model, extraterritoriality and North Atlantic single air market.Conclusions: Europe remains the multilateral exception to the general rule in international aviation that bilateralism is the norm. Despite efforts to address this competitive divide, aeropowers like China and Russia are reluctant to embrace extensive change, while major European flag carriers resist unfettered competition from outside the bloc.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.