In accepting the invitation to address the Royal Aeronautical Society I am deeply conscious of the honour that has been paid to me and of the responsibility I have undertaken. My sense of responsibility flows from the realisation that I have been called upon to contribute from personal knowledge and experience to the great volume of recorded and authoritative opinion already contributed by these lectures.

I have chosen to address you on some international aspects of air transport because it is my firm belief that the lack of an enlightened multilateral code in an important field of international air transport is one of the more serious impediments to the full exploitation of the technical advances with which air transport has been presented in recent years.