Speech by John Byerly on US-EU aviation relations

On 24 April 2007 John Byerly, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Affairs at the US State Department and the leader of the US delegation at the numerous rounds of ultimately successful air services with the European Commission, gave a speech to the International Aviation Club of Washington DC. He paid tribute to the many people involved in bringing together the historic "open skies" arrangement between the European Union and the United States and also looked forward to the next set of negotiations scheduled to begin by the end of May 2008.

Sadly one of the visionary architects of the new EU-US agreement, former EC Commissioner for Energy and Transport, Loyola de Palacio, did not live to see the agreement signed. She died of lung cancer at the age of only 56 on 13 December 2006.