Book excerpt: This is a policy oriented and comparatively oriented textbook on air and space law for students and practitioners. It covers the history and development in air and space law; their interrelationships with the law of the seas and the law of Antartica; institutions working in the field of air and space law; sovereignty in national penal air law; private international air law, especially liability law; and public and private space law Much attention is devoted to the law of air commerce: bilateral air services agreements; inter-airline co-operation; the effect of competition, antitrust and European Union law; deregulation, privatization and commercialization of air transport; ownership and control of airlines, and airline alliances; multilateralisation of air transport; and congestion and environmental controls. The last chapter of the book briefly deals with the legal aspects of commercial outer space application. Increasingly, air transport, both in fact and in law, is becoming an ordinary industry like any other and is being treated as such. Rapidly, commercial outer space activities are being privatized and commercialized.