Freedoms of the air
Also: traffic rights, air freedoms, fifth freedom
Set of rights a country grants to foreign airlines to overfly its territory, land there, or carry passengers and cargo to, from and beyond it.
What it is
They stem from the 1944 Chicago Convention and the agreements signed alongside it. The first two are technical: flying over a country without landing, and landing for non-traffic purposes such as refuelling. The third and fourth let an airline carry traffic from its home country to another and back. The fifth allows it to carry passengers between two foreign countries on a service that starts or ends at home, as Singapore Airlines has done between Frankfurt and New York on flights from Singapore.
Beyond the classic five, the industry also speaks of a sixth freedom (linking two foreign countries via the home country), a seventh (flying between two foreign countries without touching home) and the eighth and ninth, which concern cabotage.
The first two are exchanged among the many states party to the International Air Services Transit Agreement; the rest have to be negotiated in bilateral or multilateral air services agreements.
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This page was last updated on October 9, 2026
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Vuelopedia. (2026, October 9). Freedoms of the air. Retrieved October 16, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/freedoms-of-the-air
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“Freedoms of the air.” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 9 Oct. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/freedoms-of-the-air. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.
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BibTeX
@misc{vuelopedia_en_glossary_freedoms_of_the_air,
author = {{Vuelopedia}},
title = {{Freedoms of the air}},
publisher = {Fundación Poderia},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-10-09},
url = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/freedoms-of-the-air},
howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/freedoms-of-the-air}},
urldate = {2026-10-16},
note = {Accessed 2026-10-16}
}Wikipedia
{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/freedoms-of-the-air |title=Freedoms of the air |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-10-09 |access-date=2026-10-16 |language=en}}