Originally Posted by
AlanA
What on earth did we do for flights before the nice EU masters controlled our skies? (Sarcasm mode off)
Previously all air services were agreed on a bilateral basis. Under the agreement between the UK and US [known as "Bermuda II", negotiated in 1977 and revised several times] that was superseded by the EU Open Skies deal, there were far more restrictions in place; such as limiting the airlines that could fly from Heathrow to the US.