What Will the Open Skies Agreement Bring?

On March 30th the EU-US Open Skies Agreement comes into full effect, completely changing the face of cross-Atlantic air travel. Previously, European Union carriers could only operate nonstops from their home country, but with the Open Skies Agreement, the international airline playing field finally gets a bit more level. (By 2010 EU countries may be able to own and operate U.S. airlines, but that's a whole other story.)

And with a more level playing field comes lots of new direct international flights. For instance, British Airways is launching another airline, OpenSkies, which will connect JFK nonstop with the likes of Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, while Air France will start a LA to London route. KLM will fly from Dallas to Amsterdam, and Detroit gets another Heathrow flight via Northwest. Luftansa is expanding its flights to the U.S., while Singapore Airlines, in addition to launching a nonstop between Houston and Moscow, "is getting into the all-business-class business", making its ultra-long-haul nonstop routes from Newark and L.A. business class only. And Alitalia will offer non-stop L.A. to Rome by June, while Delta will launch direct flights from Salt Lake City to Paris. As for domestic flights, it's still forbidden for European airlines to fly between two U.S. airports.

The NY Post points out that, in addition to "the possibility of fewer connections," the agreement means an increased usage of Heathrow for transatlantic flights. The much-discussed Terminal 5 at Heathrow opens just three days before the agreement goes into effect, and the terminal is expected to take on most of Heathrow's international traffic. However, this won't mean an increase in flights to Heathrow overall, since the airport won't be gaining any additional runway space. Are all these changes going to bring down the cost of flights between Europe and the US? No one knows for sure. Unlike the recent Open Skies agreement between Australia and the US, which ended the "duoply" that Qantas and United shared for such flights, these European changes involve a lot more variables and may bring nothing more than lots more consolidation in the industry.