Well folks, less than 12 hours to go. The UK is said to be still negotiating feverishly; depending on which report you read, a vote should be taken either at lunchtime or this afternoon. The sticking issue is still the automatic cancellation of Open Skies if the US does not agree to domestic access by a certain date. The EU Commission says that there is a provision to compel the US to come back to the negotiating table over this, so it's not quite clear what the difference is between what the current deal proposes and what the UK wants.
Expect a lot of hard talking in the meeting today; it's 26 -v- 1 and if that one country revokes the deal, has it really considered the consequences of that?
Hopefully, they will see the positives and realise that access to the US domestic market would be a pyrrhic victory; given the brutality of the US domestic market and the likelihood that any new, foreign entrant would be cut apart by the likes of Air Tran, Southwest, Spirit and the now-lean legacy carriers, I can't see any of them entering the market, which again brings us back to the suspicion that a deal-breaker is being deliberately pushed by parties who want only to see the deal killed.
Hopefully it won't come to that; here's to success by lunchtime ...
