<B> Washington Wire</B>
By Barbara Cook, Washington Correspondent
<B>U.S., France Open Skies</B>
The United States and France have agreed on a new aviation bilateral that will phase in an open skies regime over a five-year period.
For now, the new pact will allow Delta and Continental to proceed with their proposed alliances with Air France. The new accord also will allow U.S. carriers to add nine daily flights during the five-year period, remove restrictions on code-sharing alliances between U.S. airlines and between U.S. and French carriers, lift restrictions on U.S. carriers codesharing to France with third-country carriers, remove all restrictions on fares in two years and lift various cargo rules.
<a name="story2"><B>GSA Clarifies Travel Policy</B>
In an effort to eliminate bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, the General Services Administration has rewritten parts of the federal regulations for government travelers in "plain speak." GSA administrator David Barram said the rewrite is "but a first step toward making all of our policies easier to understand by using plain language and common sense."
<a name="story3"><B>Airlines, Airports: Work It Out</B>
A consensual PFC? That was the suggestion of FAA Administrator Jane Garvey as a possible compromise between the nation's airports, which are lobbying Congress to raise the $3 per segment cap on passenger facility charges, and the airlines, which object to the hike. Garvey suggested allowing individual airports and the airlines that serve them to set a higher limit, by mutual agreement.