It's too bad people are still believing that AC-instigated canard about the ONEX deal being a "wolf in sheep's clothing" ploy by AA to take more control of Cdn. ONEX partners in some cases (like with LH in SkyChefs) but pretty much lets local management run the show. What they would have done was bring some accountability to AC's senior managers, something that is very much still needed, and will now never happen as long as the single voting shareholder limit remains at 10% or even the 20% being proposed by the House committee.

As for increasing foreign ownership levels, we've seen AA may not have even been interested in putting more money into Cdn, and who else would take on its heavy debt load at this stage? I'd say increase it, but just like cabotage and some of the other "solutions" being offered to ensure there is real competition after the merger, only on a reciprocal basis.

I doubt the US government will ever lift their 25% ownership limit, because they still see airlines as strategic companies which need to be "American owned" for national security and defence reasons: if a major conflict occurs, airlines can be "drafted" to fly troops and supplies to the front. Remember WWII? The Berlin Airlift? And the US government will never permit a foreign airline to pick up and fly local boarding passengers between two US cities to compete with US carriers domestically.

Free Trade is a great concept to throw around but it often hurts on the local scene. And the airline and telecommuncations industries are still seen as special cases by even the US government. Remember how Rupert Murdoch had to become a US citizen in order to own Fox?

And this lies behind the reason Australia has raised their foreign ownership of airlines, to accommodate Murdoch [after he became a US citizen] since nobody else was waiting to buy NewsCorp's position in Ansett. [They also wanted to give up some of their position in Qantas, and floating the whole company would have been too much for the domestic stock market, so they let BA take a position.] If they hadn't adopted these changes, Murdoch would have shut the airline down and they would have had their own competition crisis. Like Canada, there are not that many multi-billionaires who have the cash to throw around on money-losing, second place airlines. [The Australian government have also adjusted their foreign ownership rules in newspapers and broadcast media to permit Murdoch's "grandfathered" status, even though he is no longer an Australian citizen.

So it wasn't totally liberalization of trade which made the Australians change their foreign ownership rules...

Otherwise, I do agree with Ken's comments.