ABSTRACT
Airline managers are not free agents. They must cope with another characteristic of the airline industry, namely the extensive and complex domestic and international regulations that constrain it. In the period 1919 to 1949 a framework of international regulation evolved in response to the technological, economic and political developments in air transport. The advanced level of aviation technology, the need to ensure passenger safety despite the rapidity of technological innovation and the international nature of much of the airline industry have all created pressure for the introduction of more complex and more wide-ranging external controls and regulations than are found in most industries. The international air transport association was founded in Havana in 1945 as a successor to a pre-war association that had been largely European. The bilateral regulation of international air services posed, and poses, severe constraints on the freedom of action of individual airlines.
