France Moves to Cancel Aviation Accord

The French government, worried about the aggressive overseas expansion by big U.S. airlines, said Tuesday it will cancel a 46-year-old commercial aviation treaty with the United States and negotiate a new one.

But people planning vacations this summer should not be affected, according to officials on both sides of the dispute.

France’s announcement was the most dramatic move yet by Europeans worried that the major U.S. airlines--United, Delta and American--will harm their national flag carriers as they expand with new routes and take over routes formerly held by financially strapped Trans World Airlines and now-defunct Pan American World Airways.

France said it would let U.S. carriers increase their service by 30% this summer as the two governments discuss a new aviation treaty that the French hope will reverse the losses in market share their own carriers have seen in the last decade.

France’s share of bilateral air traffic has shrunk from about 50% 10 years ago to 30% today, said French civil aviation officials who briefed reporters.

U.S. carriers had sought to increase their service by 35% this summer, but France had initially tried to hold the U.S. carriers to a 15% increase.

“This compromise should ensure that air travel in the robust U.S.-French market will continue to be available at reasonable fares,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Andrew H. Card Jr. said in a statement.

France, in a communique issued by the Transport and Foreign ministries, said it will abandon the 1946 aviation treaty, known as a “bilateral,” and negotiate a new one.

Card expressed regrets but said the current agreement will continue for one year while negotiations are held.

The Transportation Department said the move by France is unusual but not unprecedented. Britain in 1978 denounced its aviation treaty with the United States, but the two sides reached a new agreement within a year, department spokesman Hal Paris said.