The numbers who take to the air in their own aeroplanes or venture onto the high seas in small boats are relatively small. Most people when they travel by air or send freight by sea use transport services provided by shipping companies, airlines, travel companies and carriers.

A TSP such as an airline is essentially a communications network. It may own a fleet of aircraft and so have a traffic network and an infrastructure of offices, but these could be rented. The existence of the TSP ultimately depends on its ability to sell a transport service.

Until recently that was done through face-to-face links between company representatives and customers at sales outlets and airports or by telephone. This process is now moving on to the internet and becoming automated. When someone goes onto the web and buys an airline ticket that information is distributed to the whole service network immediately. People use the internet to hunt for the transport services they need and transport services increasingly use the internet to hunt for customers. The way people use the internet is stored in the data bases of large companies and such information is sold and cross-referenced. The fact that a person buys books on a particular country makes them a potential customer for travel to that country and is useful information to a bookseller with links to a travel agent.

International civil aviation still stands outside the WTO. Air services are still largely conducted on a bilateral...