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Aviation glossary

Cabotage

Also: cabotage rights, eighth freedom, ninth freedom

Airlines and business

Carriage of passengers or cargo between two points within the same country, traffic that most states reserve for their own airlines and close to foreign carriers.

What it is

Under the Chicago Convention, states have sovereignty over their airspace and may reserve domestic traffic for their own airlines. A foreign carrier flying into a country therefore cannot normally sell tickets between two of its cities, even if its aircraft stops at both.

In the language of the freedoms of the air, cabotage as an extension of an international service is the eighth freedom, and stand-alone domestic flying the ninth. The best-known exception is the European Union's single aviation market: since 1997, an airline licensed in any member state may operate domestic flights in another. Ryanair, licensed in Ireland, flies domestic routes in Italy and Spain, for example.

On Vuelopedia

Ryanair

Related terms

Freedoms of the airSet of rights a country grants to foreign airlines to overfly its territory, land there, or carry passengers and cargo to, from and beyond it. Chicago ConventionInternational treaty signed in 1944 that sets out the principles of international civil aviation and gave rise to ICAO. AirlineCompany that carries passengers, cargo or mail by air for payment, holding an air operator certificate issued by its national aviation authority. Low-cost carrierAirline built around keeping costs down to sell cheap fares: a single aircraft type, high aircraft utilisation, one cabin class and extras charged separately.
Whole glossary

Cite

To cite this page in academic work, an article or Wikipedia, choose the style and copy the reference. The access date is today.

This page was last updated on October 9, 2026

APA

Vuelopedia. (2026, October 9). Cabotage. Retrieved October 16, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/cabotage

MLA

“Cabotage.” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 9 Oct. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/cabotage. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

Chicago

Vuelopedia. “Cabotage.” Fundación Poderia. Last modified October 9, 2026. https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/cabotage.

Harvard

Vuelopedia (2026) Cabotage. Available at: https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/cabotage (Accessed: 16 October 2026).

BibTeX

@misc{vuelopedia_en_glossary_cabotage,
  author       = {{Vuelopedia}},
  title        = {{Cabotage}},
  publisher    = {Fundación Poderia},
  year         = {2026},
  date         = {2026-10-09},
  url          = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/cabotage},
  howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/cabotage}},
  urldate      = {2026-10-16},
  note         = {Accessed 2026-10-16}
}

Wikipedia

{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/cabotage |title=Cabotage |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-10-09 |access-date=2026-10-16 |language=en}}

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