strict "fifth freedom" rights as a means of protecting domestic air cargo carriers or as a bargaining item to secure some unrelated objective. In the absence of "fifth freedom" rights, however, future growth of international air cargo business may be curtailed.
Complaints about American bilateral rights are rife among Asia/Pacific airlines in spite of the smoothness of bilateral treaty negotiations. The major sources of friction are United States-to-Asia traffic via Japan and the United States-Singapore bilateral arrangement, which Singapore Airlines regards as unfair. Asian carriers feel the tradeoff for fifth freedom flights should be the opening of the United States market to cabotage (Donoghue 51-53).
Asian opposition to fifth freedom rights for American and European air carriers is mounting, with American carriers bearing the brunt since these carriers operate 30 percent of Asian fifth freedom sectors. Individually, Asian countries are split over the issue. At one extreme is Singapore, which supports fifth freedom privileges because of its small domestic market, while at the other extreme is Japan. The best solution might prove to be code-sharing between air transportation carriers from different global regions and countries (Knibb 22-25).
A brief review of the international air cargo industry is presented in this section. This review is presented in discussions concerning the development and current status of the industry and the future potential of the industry.
In the domestic market in the United States, the integrated carriers now dominate (92 percent market share), with their ability to be the one-stop shipper for a customer (Nelms 26-29). The one-stop concept is being expanded into the logistics arena, to include areas such as warehousing and inventory control; thus, offering air-freight customers a wider range of services. Several integrated carriers operate logistic centers, where customers' inventor...