Freedom of the Air is the term used to indicate the extend of rights of the parties in the international airlines agreement.

1. http:www.pramugari.info

2.  The term freedom of the air is misleading
for those not in the airline business. It
appears to implies that there is freedom,
when in actual cases there are restriction.
The restriction comes from two concepts,
the sovereignty of airspace and economic
control of the country’s resources. The
restriction was agreed in the ICAO
agreement.

3.  Air transportation is different to most other forms of
transportation or commerce, not so much of the
international components but also because of the
governmental active participation in the decision making.
In fact that many national airlines or ‘flag carriers’ are
either government owned, or, even if not, are supported
by the government. This is because, having a flag-carrier is
considered as a prestige to their nation
 In addition, nations often feel that they can only rely on
their locally owned carriers to have a commitment to
providing service to their own country. This is unimportant
if you’re a small country in Europe with excellent road and
rail service to other countries, but if you’re a remote island
in the Pacific, air service is essential.

4.  And so, for reasons variously reasons, international air travel has
long been subjected to all manner of complicated restrictions and
bilateral treaties between nations. One of the main treaties that
sets out the fundamental building blocks of air transportation
regulation – the ‘rules of the road’ – is the Chicago Convention in
1944.
 These ‘building blocks’ are widely referred to as the “freedoms of
the air”, and they are fundamental to the international route
network we have today. There are five basic freedoms that are,
more or less, recognized by all countries, two others less widely
accepted, and one hardly accepted at all.

5.  The specific conditions of the agreement, such as
establishing the frequency of flights, that are determined
through bilateral agreements between any two countries.
 First Freedom – The right to fly and carry traffic over the
territory of another partner to the agreement without
landing. (Almost all countries are partners to the
Convention but some have observed this freedom better
than others. When the Korean airliner lost its way over
Soviet air space a few year ago and was shot down, the
Soviet Union (among other offenses!) violated this First
Freedom.). However, some would consider this as his right
of self protection. Overfly.

6.  Second Freedom – The right to land in those
countries for technical reasons such as
refueling without boarding or deplaning
passengers. Technical Stop.

7.  Third Freedom – The right of an airline from
one country to land in a different country and
deplane passengers coming from the airline’s
own country. Off Load passengers or goods.

8.  Fourth Freedom – The right of an airline from
one country to land in a different country and
board passengers traveling to the airline’s
own country. Upload passengers or goods.

9.  Fifth Freedom – This freedom is also sometimes
referred to as ‘beyond rights‘. It is the right of an
airline from one country to land in a second
country, to then pick up passengers and fly on to
a third country where the passengers then
deplane. An example would be a flight by
American Airlines from the US to England that is
going on to France. Traffic could be picked up in
England and taken to France.

10.  Sixth Freedom – The right to carry traffic
from one state through the home country to
a third state. Example: traffic from England
coming to the US on a US airline and then
going on to Canada on the same airline.

11.  Seventh Freedom - The right to carry traffic
from one state to another state without
going through the home country. Example
would be traffic from England going to
Canada on a US airline flight that does not
stop in the US on the way.

12.  Eighth Freedom – This is also called
cabotage and almost no country permits it.
Airline cabotage is the carriage of air traffic
that originates and terminates within the
boundaries of a given country by an air carrier
of another country. An example of this would
be an airline like Virgin Atlantic Airways
operating flights between Chicago and New
Orleans.

13.  The attempt to deregulate the airlines
operation started in 1976 in USA. When the
markets were left to determine the airlines’
operations, the scheduling the pricing, the
result were disastrous to some airlines. We
saw the end of airlines such as Pan Am and
Eastern Airlines.
 http://www.pramugari.info