RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  S/C/W/284 
21 September 2007 
 (07-3981) 
Council for Trade in Services  
  
 
SECOND REVIEW OF THE AIR TRANSPORT ANNEX 
 
POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENT TO QUASAR AND THE ASAP SOFTWARE 
 
Note by the Secretariat
1 
 
  
I. INTRODUCTION 
1. This document has been produced at the request of the Council for Trade in Services.  At the 
second meeting dedicated to the second review of the Air Transport Annex, held on 1 March 2007, 
the Council asked the Secretariat to provide a lis t of possible improvements to the Quantitative Air 
Services Agreements Review (QUASAR) methodology and database and its visualization software, 
the Air Services Agreements Projector (ASAP). 
2. At the outset, it should be noted that QUASAR, as  it currently stands, has not been exploited 
to its full potential due to time and resource constrai nts.  Additional analysis could be undertaken on 
the basis of the information contained therein (e.g. by region pairs, traffic ranges, level of 
development, etc.), and econometric regressions perfor med to examine, for instance, the determinants 
of traffic.  The Secretariat stands ready to un dertake such additional work, if Members so wish. 
3. QUASAR and ASAP were produced by the Secretariat within a relatively short time frame, 
on the basis of standard software (Microsoft Excel),  and with recourse to very little additional external 
financial (SFr. 14,000 for the development of AS AP) and human resources (1 trainee for six man-
months).  Traffic data have been provided for free by the International Air Transport Association 
(IATA)
2, whereas they are normally sold.  
4. With additional time and resources, the data underlying QUASAR and ASAP, the 
information computed and displayed therein a nd their functionalities could be relatively easily 
improved and refined.  A positive decision by Member s on some or all of the improvements suggested 
would, however, have implications in term s of calendar, dissemination and IT support. 
5. It should be noted that the suggestions for improvement that follow constitute what the 
Secretariat considers feasible, provided adequate  resources are allocated, given the information it 
currently has at its disposal.  It cannot however be  excluded that, in developing any of the suggestions 
agreed to by Members, the Secretariat may face unforeseen difficulties or, alternatively, may discover 
new possibilities for refinement offered by data or new academic research.  
                                                      
1 This document has been prepared under the Secret ariat's own responsibility and without prejudice to 
the positions of Members and to their rights and obligations under the WTO. 
2 Subject to pre-agreed restrictive conditions of use. S/C/W/284 
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  6. Finally, the list of possible improvements that  follows is clearly not exhaustive, and the 
Secretariat stands ready to study the feasibility  of any additional suggestions put forward by 
Members. 
II. POSSIBLE POSTING OF QUASAR/ASAP  ON THE PUBLIC WTO WEBSITE 
7. At the Council meeting dedicated to the re view held on 1 March 2007, several Members 
indicated that they would favour a posting of QUASAR/ASAP on the public website of the WTO.
3  
However, no final decision was taken in that regard. 
Members may wish to take a final decision with regard to the posting of QUASAR/ASAP on the 
public WTO website.  
8. It should be noted that QUASAR is already available to the general public, via the WTO 
"documents on line" facility, since its de-restri ction on 30 January 2007.  However, it is only 
retrievable in the form of 24 different files and it is neither easy to consult (e.g. Contracting State by 
Contracting State) nor to download in its present fo rm.  The suggestion would therefore be to create a 
dedicated QUASAR webpage that would enable to se arch the document according to different criteria 
and download it more easily. 
9. If a positive decision is taken in this regard, the version that would be posted on the web 
would be that distributed for the March 2007 mee ting ("QUASAR 1.0") modified to take account of 
Members' submissions correcting or complementing the ASA information contained in QUASAR ("QUASAR 1.1").  However, at the date of the issuance of the present document, only one Member, 
Australia, has provided additional information to the Secretariat;  the deadline agreed to by Members 
to provide such information is 2 October 2007.   
In view of the limited amount of information recei ved by the Secretariat so  far, Members may be 
willing to consider the possibility of prolonging the above-mentioned deadline. 
 
III. POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS TO THE DATA UNDERLYING QUASAR/ASAP AND 
TO THE INFORMATION COMPUTED AND DISPLAYED 
A. POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS TO THE UNDERLYING DATA  
10. QUASAR contains two types of data:  regulat ory, mainly consisting of the codified 
summaries of bilateral agreements contained in the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) 
World Air Services Agreements (WASA) database;  and commercial, namely IATA passenger traffic 
statistics and IATA mileage data on existing services. 
1. Regulatory data 
11. The current QUASAR sample of Air Services Agreements (ASAs) could be extended beyond 
WASA by the use of the following sources:  th e Aeroaccords database, the ICAO legal bureau 
DAGMAR application, the UN Treaties Series, web searches and individual communications by 
Members, if they so wish. 
12. The subsequent coding of the provisions of an y new or updated agreements would be done in 
a transparent manner, similarly to the way in whic h plurilateral agreements have been profiled in 
document S/C/W/270/Add.2, so as to allow for any corr ections on the part of the Members concerned.   
                                                      
3 See document S/C/M/87, page 14, paragraph 74.  S/C/W/284 
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  13. In the longer term, a database of the texts of all these agreements could be created.  Such a 
database would allow for the tracking of all su ccessive amendments of relevance to QUASAR, a 
functionality currently absent from WASA. 
2. Commercial data 
14. The IATA traffic data presently used are the actual numbers of passengers flown.  This gives 
the same weight to a Zurich-Paris passenger as to a Zurich-Sydney passenger.  To correct this bias, it 
would be preferable to use, as the professionals of  the sector do, data expressed in revenue passenger 
kilometres (RPK).  This would constitute the best approximation of traffic data, since value data on a 
city-pair or country-pair basis are not publicly av ailable.  IATA sells such a RPK mileage set.  
15. ICAO load factor statistics could also be used in combination with IATA traffic data, 
provided the two were compatible, to compute capacity deployed. 
16. Finally, existing services are now identified through IATA informa tion on direct services, i.e. 
flights operated under the same flight number by IA TA member airlines.  Further work would allow 
the singling out, within direct services, of non-stop  services, which are an interesting measure of the 
degree of the "connectivity" of a given air network. 
B. IMPROVEMENT TO THE INFORMAT ION COMPUTED AND DISPLAYED  
17. The improvements to the underlying data  described above would allow for: 
(a) the mapping of fifth and seventh freedom traffic rights in legal terms (full granting, partial 
granting, absence) and in commercial terms (e ffective operation, exerci se through code-share, 
unused rights).  Subject to the availability of underlying data, this inform ation could take into 
consideration geographical restrictions (e.g. onl y some city-pairs) and capacity restrictions.  
These rights could be displayed in two different ma nners.  Firstly, from th e point of view of a 
bilateral segment (i.e. for a given country-pair, or possibly city-pair, the bilateral carriers and 
third-party carriers that are allowed/present).  Secondly, from a "combination of rights" points of view, i.e. taking a bilateral agreement as a "pivot" and analysing how it combines with other agreements to allow (and to which exte nt) fifth or seventh freedom rights.  These 
displays would not, however, provide traffic data, since the computation, on the basis of 
publicly available data, of the amount of traffic carried under fifth and seventh freedom rights remains, at this stage, an insoluble problem.  The Secretariat would nevertheless be watchful 
of any research breakthroughs in this re gard and incorporate them as appropriate; 
(b) the mapping and, possibly, the measurement of the rare instances of eighth and ninth freedom 
traffic rights; 
(c) the incorporation in the profiles and the displa ys of plurilateral ASAs, which at present are 
dealt separately in QUASAR and are not incorporated in ASAP; 
(d) the display of additional information re garding capacity, designation, code-sharing
4 
(including third country co de-sharing ) and ownership5; 
(e) subject to the availability of underlying da ta (in particular ICAO's DAGMAR and 
Aeroaccords), the extension and adaptation of QUASAR/ASAP to cargo traffic6; 
                                                      
4 See document S/C/W/270/Add.2, page 401, paragraph 658. 
5 See document S/C/W/270/Add.2, page 408, paragraph 673. S/C/W/284 
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  (f) the factoring-in of routes; 
(g) subject to IT decisions (see below), the po ssibility of "customizing" QUASAR/ASAP to the 
specific needs of the user (e.g. different wei ghts attributed to the various market access 
elements, removal or addition of specific elements); 
(h) the introduction of a "time dimension", another feature absent from WASA. 
IV. IMPLICATIONS 
A. I
MPLICATIONS OF A THE POSTING OF QUASAR/ASAP  ON THE WEB  
18. While the creation of a specific dedicated QU ASAR page on the WTO public website is a 
relatively easy undertaking, the posting of ASAP  on-line would probably require additional IT 
developments.  The ASAP software was initially d esigned for a CD-Rom support and, given the very 
limited budget and timeframe under which it was de veloped, it is unlikely to fulfil all the pre-
requisites for a fully-fledged searchable WTO datab ase.  Hence, its posting on the web may require 
additional months of work.  If Members so agree, the Secretariat intends to pursue this objective, 
since ASAP is an integral part of QUASAR and allows , in particular, the visualization of data that are 
not readily accessible from QUASAR (e.g. regulatory and commercial data relevant to any selection 
of bilateral agreements). 
19. ASAP will also be made available to the gene ral public through the sale of the CD-Rom, 
alone or packaged together with  the review-related publications.7  
B. IT SUPPORT ASPECTS  
20. A more robust software solution for the underlyi ng database is needed.  The size of the 
QUASAR database (around 100,000 individual entries)  already exceeds the capabilities of Excel.  A 
professional application, such as for instance SQL (w hich is used for the IDB), would have to be 
employed if the volume of data were to increase,  which would inevitably be the case with new and 
updated agreements and even more so if some of  the structural improvements suggested above are 
retained by Members.  
21. Such a software migration would also be neces sary to enable new possibilities of refinements, 
such the ability, requested by some Members, to  discard from the QUASAR weighting elements that 
they do not consider as restrictive. 
__________ 
 
 
                                                                                                                                                                     
6 See document S/C/W/270/Add.2, page 331, paragraph 469. 
7 So far, the documentation of the first review (S/C/W/163 and its addenda) and document S/C/W/270 
of the second review have been published, respectively in a blue volume in all three official languages and in a 
purple volume in English only.