Originally Posted by
Bradhattan
I may be totally incorrect (if so, summarily chastised) but I thought cabotage was not allowing a foreign carrier a solely domestic leg in route such as BA operating LHR- JFK- LAX all on BA metal...the domestic JFK-LAX would be cabotage.
It is only cabotage if BA sold tickets JFK-LAX. They are free to operate the flight, for example if JFK were a tech stop.
Before it served MEL nonstop, UA used to operate a flight SFO-SYD-MEL (and vv). Passengers could even connect from UA's LAX-SYD flight to the SYD-MEL segment to do a LAX-MEL journey (and vv). That was not cabotage, because ultimately the revenue* ticketing was from US to Australia, even though UA operated an domestic Australia leg.
(* - UA employees could pass travel nonrev on the SYD-MEL segment with no restrictions (other than being standby), IIRC.)