Originally Posted by akerosid
Ultimately, I think EU govts - particularly those without Open Skies agreements with the US, such as Ireland - are going to have to look to protect their own countries' positions.
I don't think that's the issue.
There are three markets here:
The US;
The EU;
And the transatlantic routes between the two.
The US wants to liberalise the third one of these.
The EU wants to group all three into a great big single market with a (more or less) common set of rules. It has proved (in Europe) that a cross-border single market can function perfectly well and is fired with evangelical zeal to export the concept around the world.
Personally, I think it's right, as regards the US market, although probably not appropriate for some of the other countries they are dealing with. I think a single Free Trade Area would benefit US and European airlines, US and European consumers - although not necessarily in equal measure.
If the single-market option is politically unacceptable to the Americans, that's not to say that the transatlantic-only option would not be beneficial, as long as there was a coming-together on things like state aid, anticompetitive behaviour etc.