I shall aim at explaining, from an operator's point of I view, what was so wrong with the Bermuda Agreement that the UK Government denounced it, to what extent Bermuda 2 has corrected that position and, in addition, put forward a few thoughts on possible charter arrangements within Bermuda 2.

For over 30 years, the Bermuda Agreement of 1946 set the framework for UK/US civil aviation affairs—and served for perhaps 15 to 20 years in form and in reality as the prototype for most civil aviation agreements in the free world.

By the late 1960s, however, there were few bilateral air agreements involving countries other than the USA which did not in some way control capacity. Despite the almost invariable Bermuda façade, the effect of attaching confidential understandings between governments to the published Bermuda text was to control capacity in one way or another.