Bermuda Agreement

The Agreement between the government of the United Kingdom and the government of the United States relating to Air Services between their respective Territories (Bermuda Agreement), reached in 1946 by American and British negotiators in Bermuda, was an early bilateral air transport agreement regulating civil air transport. It established a precedent for the signing of approximately 3,000 other such agreements between countries. The Agreement was replaced by the Bermuda II Agreement, signed in 1977 and effective in 1978.

During World War II, transatlantic air service between Britain and America was limited to Boeing 314 flying boat service between Baltimore and Foynes, which Pan American World Airways had begun in July 1939. British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) also flew the route using three Boeing 314s purchased from Pan Am.

The Bermuda Agreement arose in the wake of the Chicago Conference of 1944, where the United States and United Kingdom disagreed about economic control of international air transport. The US and UK had generally agreed on the first two freedoms of the air (overflight and landings for repair/refueling) but the UK and several other countries refused to accept the US position on the third, fourth and fifth freedoms regarding the handling of passenger and cargo traffic. Specifically, the US sought the freedom for its carriers to determine capacity and frequencies on international routes, while the UK sought predetermined routes and an equal division of capacity between the two nations' carriers on those routes. Britain had lost much of its air fleet in the course of World War II and was reluctant to place itself in full competition with the stronger American air fleet.

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