EU to seek Open Skies with Asean?

by TOM BALLANTYNE FROM BALI  

December 1st 2015

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Negotiations aimed at forging a major bloc-to-bloc open skies deal between Europe and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) could start early next year, said Henrik Hololei, the EU’s director general for mobility and transport, at the AAPA Assembly of Presidents in Bali. Read More »

Speaking on a panel Competitiveness and Regulatory Challenges at the gathering, Hololei said: I am very keen to see increasing co-operation between the EU and this area and I am keen to promote that co-operation and work with airlines in the region and the regulators.

“Obviously, there are a lot of opportunities because the aviation market (in Asia) will grow over the coming decades. It is quite natural that the EU and European carriers are keen to forge more presence in the market.”

If an EU-Asean agreement materializes, it would be the first aviation agreement in the world between two important blocs of nations, creating a single aviation market with a combined population of more than 1.1 billion.

The concept has been discussed informally for some time. Singapore especially has pushed the idea of an EU-Asean single aviation market as a way of defending the region against the continuing growing intrusion of Gulf carriers into Asia-Europe traffic.

If EU-Asean open skies discussions take off progress will be slow. A deal would have to be acceptable to each nation in each bloc. Within Asean, smaller countries such as Myanmar and Cambodia would be extremely nervous about their airlines competing with an influex of European carriers seeking customers in their home markets.