In the wave of growing consumer demand for global air travel, one can observe how domestic and international regulation of certain market aspects of aviation has not always developed in the same direction or at the same speed; this purports to challenge orderly progress of international law. Different legal frameworks, legal and political ideologies and respective realities have influenced the development of, for instance, multi-level regulation of aspects of civil aviation vis-à-vis consumer protection and limited liability regimes. Such developments are reflected in the most recent progress at the international level, following the adoption by the International Civil Aviation Organization of core principles on consumer protection for air passengers. This article provides an exposé on the increasingly contentious area of divergent approaches for the development of consumer protection initiatives, focusing on what are air passenger rights and how the impetus to provide them uniformly has risen up the agenda of the international aviation community. The article considers existing international law on air carrier liability, and the EU and US air passenger rights regimes, before locating the new core principles, to determine alignment of the existing systems
