The European Commission will negotiate air traffic agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey and countries in Southeast Asia.
Such agreements, now often made on a bilateral basis by individual governments, would set out where and how often foreign airlines could fly into the EU, and vice versa.
“Once agreed, these arrangements will offer new business opportunities to the whole aviation sector, new routes and better fares to passengers”, EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc said.
The EU Commission asked EU-member governments last December to give it a mandate to start talks on air transport agreement. For the time being, South Cyprus has made no objection about commencing negotiations with Turkey on the issue.
Hurriyet
