841.796/3–2245: Telegram

The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State

3003. From Satterthwaite.4 ReDepts 2006, March 15, midnight,5 It can be expected that the British Government, utilizing British Overseas Airways when desirable, will attempt to restrict the spread of the Fifth Freedom privilege6 wherever possible and will execute this policy partly by encouraging the formation of either regional companies or regional cabotage areas. While United States companies would probably not be excluded the operation of regional cabotage through the local companies in which the British, through BOAC or other means, had a hand might place American airlines at a serious disadvantage.

The emergence of the White Paper,7 even though it has not yet been approved by Parliament, has given impetus to translating into action British civil aviation plans.

We feel that it might be wise, regardless of and without reference necessarily to specific case of Egypt, to notify the British Government on a high level that we would not expect the British to enter into any agreements, either on a governmental level or through companies influenced or controlled by British Overseas Airways or other British airlines, which would restrict the right of the United States to conclude “Fifth Freedom” air agreements with these countries. In effect this would be an extension of the non-exclusive and non-discriminatory understanding arrived at in 1942.8 [Satterthwaite.]

Winant
  1. Livingston L. Satterthwaite, Civil Air Attaché at the Embassy in the United Kingdom.
  2. Not printed.
  3. The picking up and discharging of traffic at intermediate points along a route rather than merely at terminal points (but not carrying local traffic within a country).
  4. British Cmd. 6605, British Air Transport (1945).
  5. See Department’s aide-mémoire of May 27, 1942, and the British Embassy’s reply of July 28, 1942, Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. iv, pp. 21 and 23, respectively.