NickB

In effect, EU policy is to treat the whole of the EU/EEA as a single jurisdiction for aviation purposes. So any EU/EEA airline can fly between any two points within the EU/EEA, including within a single Member State. Although much of EU air transport regulation also applies to Switzerland, this would not fully apply to them, in that EU/EEA airlines have no cabotage rights within Switzerland and vice-versa.

As regards relations with third countries, EU policy is the same and agreements have been concluded with third countries, such as the US, that more or less treat the EU as if it were a single jurisdiction. Therefore any EU airline can fly between any point in the EU and any point in the US. The EU-US agreement was originally concluded between the EU and the US but later extended to Norway and Iceland. Some agreements, , such as the EU-Australia one, included EFTA countries right from the start, including Switzerland and Lichtenstein (although the significance of Lichtenstein's participation might be somewhat limited ).

Where there are no agreement between the third country concerned and the EU, relations are regulated through bilaterals between individual EU Member States and the third country concerned. However, in this case, Member States have been required to renegotiate their bilaterals so as to include an EU recognition clause, whereby the benefit of the agreement is extended to all EU/EFTA airlines operating from the Member State concerned to the third country concerned.