Regulating the Airlines is a detailed historical study of the structures used by government to control the most important features of air travel from the origins of aviation through to 1984. The author is an administrative lawyer, and his main purpose is to use the experiences of government in regulating the airlines to demonstrate the problems that may arise when what are essentially matters of policy are delegated to independent bodies employing expert staff and empowered to exercise continuing control over an industry by adjudicating on disputes between parties operating in it and by making and enforcing rules for its operation. Civil aviation was thought to be a particularly appropriate industry to be examined for these purposes, as its regulation has witnessed a series of dramatic changes within a relatively short period, as structural forms have been adopted and subsequently abandoned when found wanting. Moreover, the introduction in 1971 of a system in the field of civil aviation, under which day-to-day control was to be left in the hands of an independent body Ithe Civil Aviation Authority) but which was to operate in the general context of binding written policy guidance issued by government, was the first of its kind.

The author initially takes his readers through some possible classifications of government agencies and proceeds to outline the chaotic early history of civil aviation regulation. The book really begins in 1960, with the creation of the Air Transport Licensing Board, and there follows a detailed analysis of the 11 years of the A.T.L.B.’s existence, consisting of consideration of the policies of that body in relation to competition, licensing and pricing, and of its relationship with governments of various complexions. The author neatly demonstrates in these chapters that a body which is empowered to reach decisions on policy matters cannot act in a confident or consistent manner when government is not fully certain that it actually does wish to surrender its control over the industry in question. These early chapters of Mr Baldwin’s book indeed reveal that the authority of the A.T.L.B. was undermined by frequent reverses of its attempts to formalize its policy conclusions in individual cases, both by government acting directly and by inexpert commissioners acting on behalf of government.

Much of the remainder of this study is devoted to the formation and role of the Civil Aviation Authority and, in particular, its ability to function within government policy guidelines. A number of issues are analysed here, including the approach of the courts to the vires of the policy guidelines (as laid down in 1976 in the Sky train case: Laker Airways Ltd. v. Department of Trade [1977] Q.B. 643), the legal grounds upon which the decisions and procedures of an administrative body charged with the duty of reaching licensing decisions are open to challenge, whether licensing decisions taken on what are essentially policy grounds are suitably reached in a procedure bordering on the judicial and whether such decisions are better regarded as rulemaking or as case law. This section concludes with an assessment of the C. A.A.’s regulatory performance; the author’s own broad view is that the C.A.A. performed creditably, given its potentially anomalous role and variety of functions, that it managed to