Why Governments Protect Airlines
Four factors influence governments’ protection of their airlines:
1. Countries believe they can save money by maintaining small air forces and relying on domestic airlines in times of unusual air transport needs. (For example, the U.S. government used U.S. commercial carriers to help carry troops to and from Iraq and Afghanistan)
2. Public opinion favors spending “at home”—especially for government-paid travel. The public sees the maintenance of national airlines and the requirement that government employees fly on those airlines as foreign-exchange savings.
3. Airlines are a source of national pride, and aircraft (sporting their national flags) symbolize a country’s sovereignty and technical competence. This national identification is less important than it used to be, but it is still important in some developing countries.
4. Worried about protecting airspace for security reasons are less of a concern today, because foreign carriers routinely overfly a country’s territory to reach inland gateways, such as JAL’s flights between Tokyo and Chicago. Further, overflight treaties are quite common, even among unfriendly nations (For example, Cubana overflies the United States en route to Canada, and AA overflies Cuba en route to South America)