Analysis on the Problems of U.S.-Korea Air Services Agreement and Recommend Action for its Improvement-

한.미항공협정(韓.美航空協定)의 문제점(問題點)과 개선방향(改善方向)

This paper is examine the problems of U.S.-Korea Air Service Agreement and recommend some directions for its improvement under the rapidly changing circumstance and growing importance of Korean penisula. Since the provisional agreement of 1949, U.S. -Korea Air Service Agreement has consistently been favorable to U.S. side. Fair and equal opportunity is the principle and basis of the bilateral air agreement. Notwithstanding such principle, it is only the U.S. carriers who can freely enter into any market, under the discretion of business strategy, while Korean carrier can serve only three points including Honolulu. In an effort to recitify such serious imbalance, Korea continuousely requested additional rights and has given utmost efforts to accommodate requests made by U.S. carries without much success. When we review aviation market between Korea and U.S. under the present agreement, Korea is fully open to U.S. carries as they can connect from any or all points in the U.S. via any or all points in Korea and all points beyond Korea. Increased number of U.S. carriers are enjoying greater utilization of the opportunity accorded them. Four(4) U.S. carries now operate to Korea using thirteen(13) gateway points and about one hundred fifty(150) on-line points in the U.S. such imbalance can be well understood when we review the exchange of traffic rights between the U.S. and the Pacific rim countries. During the yeras following the 1978 agreement with Korea, the U.S. proceeded to sign liberal agreements with Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore and the Phillipines. In exchange, the U.S. granted the four Pacific rim countries substantially greater rights than were granted to Korea, although Korea was the first Asian nation to sign a pro-competitive aviation agreement which granted U.S. carriers unrestricted market access and pricing flexibility. Moreover, Korea ranks the 2nd trading and tourist partner to the U.S. among the Pacific rim countries (Japan is the largest partner to the U.S. in terms of both trade and tourist market). In this paper such problems in the Korea-U.S. Air Services Agreement are analyzed in terms of historical perspective, U.S. Aviation policy, imbalance status in detail cases, discrimination to Korea comparing to other Asian countries, and theoretical application. And further it discusses current aviation issues between Korea and U.S. such as the ratification of 1980 MOU and various doing business issues of U.S. carriers in Korea. Finally, this paper concludes the analysis and suggests some directions to improve and rectify the problems and imbalance of U.S.-Korea Air Services Agreement in question.