The freedoms of the air: traffic rights from the first to the ninth freedom

At the fence in Frankfurt, an aircraft from Singapore taxis to the runway – destination not Singapore, but New York. A few weeks later you spot an Irish airline on a route between Germany and Spain. Neither is a coincidence, but the result of a set of rules that has determined since 1944 who may fly where in international air transport: the freedoms of the air. This guide explains all nine freedoms, their origin, the most important agreements and what traffic rights mean for your everyday spotting.

Freedoms of the air: the short answer

The freedoms of the air are nine categories of traffic rights that describe what an airline of one state may do in the airspace or at the airports of another state. The scale runs from mere overflight (first freedom) through carrying passengers between two foreign countries (fifth freedom) to purely domestic flights in a foreign state (ninth freedom). The first five come from the agreements of the Chicago Conference of 1944; the other four are a later, unofficial classification of practice.

Important: the freedoms are not automatic rights. They are a kind of construction kit. Which of them an airline may actually use is set by states in air services agreements – mostly between two countries, increasingly also in large multilateral treaties.

Why traffic rights are needed at all

The starting point is a simple principle: every state has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory. It says so right in the first article of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, signed in Chicago on December 7, 1944 by 52 states. It entered into force on April 4, 1947, and on the same day the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) began its work. Today, practically all states in the world belong to the convention.

Air sovereignty means an airline may not simply fly into another country. For scheduled international services, it needs special permission from the state concerned under the convention. Non-scheduled traffic, such as individual charter or on-demand flights, is treated somewhat more freely but is also subject to conditions. The difference between the two types of service is explained in the article Charter flights and scheduled flights.

In Chicago, the US originally wanted to push through largely free world air transport, while other states feared the dominance of American airlines. The result was a compromise: the basic convention governs safety, technology and responsibilities, and the economic rights were moved into two separate supplementary agreements – and that is where the story of the freedoms begins.

The nine freedoms at a glance

The table shows all nine freedoms from the point of view of an airline with home state A. B and C are foreign states.

Freedom	What the airline from state A may do	Example pattern	Status
1st	overfly state B without landing	A → (over B) → C	Transit Agreement
2nd	land in B without setting down or picking up passengers or cargo (fuel, technical)	A → B (fuel stop) → C	Transit Agreement
3rd	carry passengers/cargo from A to B	A → B	Transport Agreement
4th	carry passengers/cargo from B to A	B → A	Transport Agreement
5th	carry between B and C if the flight starts or ends in A	A → B → C	Transport Agreement
6th	carry between B and C, with a connection in its own country A	B → A → C	unofficial
7th	carry between B and C, with no connection to A at all	B → C	unofficial
8th	carry within B, as part of a flight from or to A	A → B1 → B2	unofficial (cabotage)
9th	carry within B, with no connection to A	B1 → B2	unofficial (cabotage)

First and second freedom: overflight and fuel stop

The first two freedoms are the technical freedoms. They bring the airline no revenue in the foreign country but make long routes possible in the first place. They are governed by the Transit Agreement of 1944, also called the “Two Freedoms Agreement.” Well over a hundred states have joined it, though some large countries are missing and overflights there are regulated bilaterally.

The second freedom used to be decisive: aircraft with limited range had to make intermediate landings. Well-known fuel-stop airports of the early transatlantic era were Shannon in Ireland and Gander in Newfoundland. During the Cold War, many Europe–Japan flights went via Anchorage, because Soviet airspace was off-limits to Western airlines for a long time. Anchorage remains an important stop for cargo flights between Asia and North America to this day – from Point Woronzof you see heavy freighters in dense succession there. Tips are in the guide Plane spotting in Anchorage.

Third and fourth freedom: the normal case

The third and fourth freedoms are the bread-and-butter business: an airline flies passengers or cargo from its home country abroad (third) and back (fourth). Every Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Chicago and back uses exactly these two rights. They are almost always agreed together, because permission for the outbound flight without the return would make no economic sense.

Fifth freedom: the spotter’s freedom

With the fifth freedom, it gets exciting. On a flight that starts or ends in its home country, an airline may also carry passengers between two foreign states. The classic example is the Singapore Airlines route from Singapore via Frankfurt to New York: anyone boarding in Frankfurt can fly across the Atlantic with an Asian airline without ever having been to Asia.

Fifth-freedom rights generally require three states to agree: the home state, the country of the stopover and the destination country. The destination country in particular often has little interest in admitting foreign competition on a route its own airlines already fly. That is why such routes are comparatively rare – and exactly for that reason popular with spotters. Gulf airlines such as Emirates also use such rights on individual routes via Europe to the US. Which fifth-freedom connections currently exist changes with the schedules; so check the current planning before a spotting day.

Sixth freedom: the hub principle

The sixth freedom is basically a combination of the fourth and third: passengers fly from country B to the home country A, change there and continue to C. Legally, the airline often needs no separate permission for this, because it only links its third and fourth freedoms. Economically, though, it is enormously important: the entire business model of large connecting airlines is built on it.

Typical examples are the hubs in the Gulf, but also Turkish Airlines in Istanbul, KLM in Amsterdam or Icelandair, which connects Europe and North America via Keflavík. The background on the Gulf model is in the article Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad, the network principle behind it in Hub-and-spoke and point-to-point. In disputes over market share in particular, the sixth freedom is often criticized: established airlines accuse hub carriers of drawing off traffic via their hub that actually takes place between two other countries.

Seventh freedom: no home connection at all

With the seventh freedom, the airline flies between two foreign states without the route touching its home country. For passenger traffic, that is rare. It is found more often in cargo transport: the open skies agreement between the EU and the US, for example, allows all-cargo flights between the US or the EU and third countries without the aircraft having to fly to the home market. Typical cargo patterns are shown in the article Identifying cargo aircraft.

Eighth and ninth freedom: cabotage

The last two freedoms concern domestic traffic in a foreign country, also called cabotage. With the eighth freedom (“consecutive cabotage”), a foreign airline on a flight from or to its home country carries passengers between two domestic airports of the foreign state. With the ninth freedom (“stand-alone cabotage”), it flies purely domestic routes there.

Cabotage is the most heavily protected form of traffic worldwide. Most states reserve domestic flights for their own airlines. A historical special case is the Berlin traffic of the Cold War: until 1990, only airlines of the three Western Allies were allowed to fly between West Berlin and West Germany, for example Pan Am with connections from Frankfurt. German airlines were left out.

How traffic rights are actually granted

The nine freedoms are a vocabulary, not a law. The real rights are in air services agreements. In them, states set out which airlines may serve which routes with how many flights.

Bilateral agreements: the Bermuda model

For a long time, the agreement between the United Kingdom and the US, negotiated in Bermuda in 1946, was the model for world air transport. It set out specific routes, laid down principles for capacity and made fares subject to official approval. In 1977, the much more restrictive “Bermuda II” was signed, which among other things specified which few airlines were allowed to fly between London Heathrow and the US. It was replaced only in 2008 by the open skies agreement between the EU and the US.

Thousands of such bilateral agreements exist to this day. They often specify exactly how many frequencies per week are allowed, which airports may be served and how many airlines per side are “designated.”

Open skies: fewer borders

From the 1990s, the counter-model prevailed: open skies agreements, which largely abolish capacity and fare requirements. The most important one for Europe is the agreement between the EU and the US, signed on April 30, 2007 and in force since March 30, 2008. It allows airlines of both sides to fly between any point in the EU and any point in the US, including onward flights to third countries. Norway and Iceland joined in 2011. The topic is covered in detail in the article Open skies agreements and the EU single aviation market.

One limit remains: European airlines may not offer domestic flights in the US or take control of US airlines. On transatlantic routes, airlines therefore often cooperate in joint ventures. US airlines may fly within the EU only as a continuation of a flight beginning in the US or with all-cargo aircraft.

The EU single market: cabotage for all Europeans

The EU itself has gone the furthest. In three liberalization packages of 1987, 1990 and 1992, the restrictions on intra-European air transport were lifted step by step. Since 1997, European airlines may also fly purely domestic routes in other member states. Today this is governed mainly by Regulation 1008/2008: anyone who holds an operating license from an EU state and is controlled by EU states or their citizens counts as a European air carrier.

For you as a spotter, that is the reason why Ryanair, easyJet (within the EU since Brexit through its Austrian subsidiary easyJet Europe) or Wizz Air maintain bases in many countries and fly routes that have nothing to do with their home country. How these airlines work economically is shown in the article How low-cost carriers work. The basis for flight operations is the AOC and the operating license.

How airlines work around traffic rights

Where traffic rights are missing, airlines often find ways to extend their network anyway. These are the most common tools:

• Codeshare: An airline markets a partner’s flights under its own flight number. The right being flown belongs to the partner, while the sales channel is extended. More in the article Codeshare flights explained.
• Alliances: In alliances such as Star Alliance, oneworld and SkyTeam, airlines link their networks so passengers can travel via several hubs without any single airline needing additional rights.
• Subsidiaries in other countries: Groups set up offshoots with their own AOC in another state to use its traffic rights. Background is provided by the article Multi-brand strategies.
• Wet lease: An airline charters the aircraft plus crew of another. The flights run under the client’s rights – see Wet lease explained.

What traffic rights mean for spotters

Anyone who has the freedoms of the air in mind reads their home airport’s schedule with different eyes. A few typical patterns:

• Fifth-freedom flights bring airlines and aircraft types to airports that would otherwise never come into contact with them. In Frankfurt, where through services by Asian airlines to the US have been departing for years, it is worth a look at the departure schedules – for example from the Zeppelinheim viewing platform.
• Technical stops show up on cargo flights, ferry flights and special flights. They are often short-notice and can only be recognized through flight tracking.
• Closed airspaces shift entire traffic flows. Since 2022, many Western airlines have avoided Russian airspace, which has lengthened routes between Europe and East Asia. Traffic rights and overflight rights are therefore also a political instrument.
• Low-cost bases throughout the EU are a direct consequence of cabotage freedom in the single market.

To read a flight number correctly and identify the operator, the articles IATA and ICAO codes explained and Callsign and flight number help you.

Common misconceptions

• “The freedoms apply automatically.” Wrong. They are categories. Whether an airline may use them is decided by the agreements between the states involved.
• “ICAO grants traffic rights.” Also not true. ICAO sets standards for safety and technology and describes the freedoms; the rights themselves are exchanged by states among themselves.
• “Codeshare is the same as fifth freedom.” With codeshare, the partner airline flies with its own rights; on a fifth-freedom flight, the airline itself flies between two foreign states.
• “Traffic right means departure time.” Anyone allowed to fly a route still needs matching slots at congested airports – more under Airport slots.

Conclusion

The freedoms of the air are the basic vocabulary of international air transport. Overflight and fuel stops are largely standard, outbound and return flights between two countries the normal case. It gets exciting from the fifth freedom: then airlines fly between foreign states, link networks through their hubs or – as in the EU single market – even offer domestic flights abroad. Anyone who knows this logic understands why certain airlines show up at their airport and others do not.