Part I – general 5 The Sources of Int’l Air Law 5 Q? How does customary law relate to int’l law?
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- Q What does the agency conference do
- Q How Do The Committees Prepare The Decision Making In The Conferences
4) 3 Types of Conferences:Unanimity Voting Rules:Conference rules operate under rules, details are not imp., except one should know that the conference follows unanimity rules. Meaning rules coming out of these conferences must be adopted by unanimous consent of all members. Majority does not simply rule b/c it (i.e. which service conference sometimes operates on) would not allow for uniformity as those who do not vote in favour of such a rule will simply not apply the rule & administering such a system would not be practical. Thus, negotiations are very arduous & long. Since, 1978 you can agree to a rule or tariff but do something entirely different as there is an absence of sanctions. Don’t forget that there are practical pressures of operation b/c if one airline isn’t following the same rules – then they may cut themselves out of the aviation business. Soft law becomes very strong operationally. Again, when it comes to voting in the conference system there is a rule unanimity, which means all the carriers that participate in the conference much vote in favour of the proposal some exceptions do exist – i.e. services conferences (see rules of conduct for IATA traffic conferences) & the exception that applies says that as far as the scope of the decision making conferences are concerned a majority of 2/3 is sufficient. This is the only exception that is under the IATA rules at art. 8 para 6 on the rules of IATA traffic conferences. Imp. exception from the unanimity rule as it deals w/ recommended practices, which does not have the same binding force as a resolution as the tariff coordination conference. B/c it doesn’t have a binding force it was acceptable to have a 2/3 majority. In the field of the services conference there is another exception at art. 8 para 5, which deals w/ industry stnds. Industry standards maybe adopted by 4/5th majority – which by its nature should apply to everyone – abstentions are also not counted (p.69 CB) Note there is also a special feature of industry stnds in the field of services as after the adoption of the package every member is free if they cannot adhere to the service they can file a notice stating that they were unable to adhere to the stnd. Once a filing notice is made they are entitled to refrain from implementing that conference package. Q? If you are a member do you have to participate in the meeting & activities of the conference? This was an issue before 1978, but under the new rules every member can elect to participate under the conference system. None of the members have to be involved in the tariff conference - associate carriers can also elect whether or not they want to be part of the agency & service conferences. There is a certain amount of flexibility in the system now as members may or may not participate & as far as the agency & services conferences associate members can elect to participate or not. Tariff coordination conference: (Tariff Function discussed above) This is the most important type of conference. It is the classical activity of the conferences to coordinate fares & rates. -Note Conference tariffs are recommendations w.r.t. legal force, even if they’re gov’tly approved for reasons of competition. This changed after 1978. Rather the conference tariffs were used as indicators (bench marks for elsewhere in the world). Q? When & how do tariff decisions become effective?! This is imp b/c some countries only apply decisions that have been approved by gov’t, for ex. the US has held that only gov’t approved decision can be applied by airlines. The US has rather stringent anti-trust rules (i.e. price fixing is an offence) One might say these airlines who set around the tariff tables at conferences are price fixing but this is an exception from anti-trust rules in the US, however, these int’l price fixing has to be first submitted to the gov’t for approval & cannot be applied until the US has approved them. This is a legally valid condition that the US dept of transport has allowed (immunization) In practice when the conferences have met & have voted by unanimity for a proposal package, the airlines can’t apply such proposal until submitted to the gov’t who studies it for 2-3 mths, which is normally later approved w/ an effectiveness date put on the package stating when the package comes into force – this usually coincides w/ a new time table (one is the summer schedule the other is the winter). The effectiveness date usually coincides w/ the schedule. Note: Sometimes a package will not be approved by a particular country i.e. India or UK, which result in IATA meeting again to negotiate the package. Services conference: These are concerned w/ the harmonization of the rules b/t the carriers & w/ particular reference to the interline system. The services conferences are actually charged w/ rule-making for the purposes of the interline system in order to ensure that the rules are the all the same among all the participating carriers. Services conferences establishes rules about operation on the passenger & cargo side. for ex. the question of when the airline is going to accept your ticket, under which circs can the airline refuse to accept the ticket i.e. where the ticket is not validated or doesn’t show the name of the passenger the airline can refuse to honour the ticket. Similarly, the airline can impose condition w.r.t. transport of those physically disabled i.e. how far in advance a handicap person must give notice to receive such service. This is nec. w.r.t. the amount of inter-lining going on (changing carriers during the same ship) – they should be subject to the same rules, w/out such confusion will follow. (3) Agency conferences: K b/t agent & IATA w.r.t. what the agency can & cannot do. Important b/c when agents receive the tickets its like cash & the agents have rules to follow w.r.t. such (i.e. how they’re filled in, security (safe), how funds must be handled, how quickly agent must remit those funds to the carrier etc.) Types of Tickets: Dedicated airline ticket: where airline logo & name is shown on the cover bank settlement plan ticket: where IATA logo is on the cover of ticket. The carrying carrier’s code needs to be inserted. It is a neutral ticket that can be ticketed on any of the IATA carriers. Combined ticket & boarding pass: where the ticket itself is combined w/ the boarding pass. This is also uniform. Electronic ticket: this ticket also has a specific format, which is also agreed upon by the carriers. Thus, you have different types of ticket but they are all uniform around the world & that is the domain of the services conference. But the ticket is only a small portion of what the conference does. Ex., the transportation of handicapped people, the rules that apply to such transportation is standardized by the Services conference. Ex., is the reservation system. This is also standardized by the services conference.
Q? What does the agency conference do?IATA has accredited agents. This accreditation system is uniformly applied. There is an agency accreditation contract b/t the airlines & the agent & there are a number of rules that apply b/t the airlines & the accredited agents. The rules are comprised in the so-called agent handbook. Those rules are made comprised in the agent handbook & those rules are made by the agency conference. Thus, the agency conference standardized the rules that apply b/t the principal (the airline) & the agent which is the person acting as the representative of the airline when making the contract of carriage w/ the passenger or the cargo shipper. This relationship is a standardized relationship & the agent basically has no choice of sort of changing the rules of that relationship. The agent has very little room to negotiate w/ the airline. There are about 14,000 int’l travel agents & thus the system could not be administered if everybody was trying to get his own terms. Thus, in order to make the system manageable, the airlines insist on uniformity. This system is administered by the agency conference. The agency conference has a secretary who is the agency administrator & is part of the secretariat & reports to the Director General & reports to the agency conference & is responsible to the agency conference for the good administration of the system. Q? How high is the commission of the travel agent on a sale? The standard level of commission which carriers used to pay & has recently decreased. W/ increasing volume, the carriers usually pay an override commission. The standard commission in the industry used to be 9% of the value of the int’l ticket. In recent years, b/c of the decreasing strength of the agent & the increasing strength of other distribution methods (internet & electronic ticketing), the carriers have decreased the commission to 7%. A carrier that no longer feels dependent on the agency system will tend to give a lower commission. The general level under the agency system is still 9%, but carriers can make individual arrangements. The general level for override commissions used to be in the order of 11% or 12%. The carriers would honor a large amount of volume of a travel agent would give them 11 or 12%. The profit margin of most carriers on an int’l ticket will be only 5%. The cargo agency system itself, the contract & the rules that govern the cargo agents, are agreed to in the cargo-agency conference. The commission is not discussed in the cargo-agency conference since it is a matter of negotiation. Q? How Do The Committees Prepare The Decision Making In The Conferences?Each of three conference mentioned above has its own committees, which prepares that particular conference’s decision-making. & all of these committees are serviced by the secretariat. Each committee has a secretary who is a member of the secretariat. So, the preparation of decision-making is facilitated by the fact that the secretaries usually need to make sure that all the information from other IATA bodies are fit into the meeting they are preparing. Recap:
You will recall our discussion of the unanimity principle & the fact that the packages coming out of tariff conferences are subject to governmental approval & this requirement of governmental approval is not contained in the rules for the conduct of tariff conferences themselves, but is contained in the applicable bilateral air transport agreements & that the first bilateral air transport agreement which stipulated this mechanism was the Bermuda I agreement of 1946 which was followed by most countries until the advent of “Open sky” agreements. Directory: pubdocs -> files files -> International maritime conventions files -> Chapter 1: Property as rights, not thing files -> Insurance Law – May 4 files -> Contractual Obligations – Prof. Helge Dedek Introduction 1 files -> Constitutional Limits on Criminal Law 1 files -> Antonio Iacovelli Winter 2005 Advanced Criminal Law files -> Private International Law – Prof. Walsh Summer 2005 files -> Part I: conceptualizing and justifying ip space 3 files -> Topic One Seaworthiness and Common Venture, chapter 15 Download 0.73 Mb. Share with your friends:
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