http://www.dot.gov/ost/ogc/subject/f...eCabotage.html

Airline cabotage is the carriage of air traffic that originates and terminates within the boundaries of a given country by an air carrier of another country. Rights to such traffic are usually entirely denied or severely restricted.

http://www.thetravelinsider.info/info/freedoms.htm

First Freedom - The right to fly and carry traffic over the territory of another partner to the agreement without landing. (Almost all countries are partners to the Convention but some have observed this freedom better than others. When the Korean airliner lost its way over Soviet air space a few year ago and was shot down, the Soviet Union (among other offenses!) violated this First Freedom.)

Second Freedom - The right to land in those countries for technical reasons such as refueling without boarding or deplaning passengers.

Third Freedom - The right of an airline from one country to land in a different country and deplane passengers coming from the airline’s own country.

Fourth Freedom - The right of an airline from one country to land in a different country and board passengers traveling to the airline’s own country.

Fifth Freedom - This freedom is also sometimes referred to as 'beyond rights'. It is the right of an airline from one country to land in a second country, to then pick up passengers and fly on to a third country where the passengers then deplane. An example would be a flight by American Airlines from the US to England that is going on to France. Traffic could be picked up in England and taken to France.

Sixth Freedom - The right to carry traffic from one state through the home country to a third state. Example: traffic from England coming to the US on a US airline and then going on to Canada on the same airline.

Seventh Freedom - The right to carry traffic from one state to another state without going through the home country. Example would be traffic from England going to Canada on a US airline flight that does not stop in the US on the way.

Eighth Freedom - This is also called cabotage and almost no country permits it. Airline cabotage is the carriage of air traffic that originates and terminates within the boundaries of a given country by an air carrier of another country. An example of this would be an airline like Virgin Atlantic Airways operating flights between Chicago and New Orleans.