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Comment by darrenf | Hacker News Reader

Fifth freedom is the right for an airline to carry revenue traffic between two countries, neither of which are its home country. For example BA carrying paying passengers between Singapore and Sydney, or Singapore Airlines carrying them from Frankfurt to New York. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedoms_of_the_air

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More important, 5th freedom is not a "low fare loophole" relying on an "old treaty".

Not all countries/stops allow 5th freedom rights in all cases.

Sounds like just journalistic exaggeration

Exaggeration is right. There is really nothing special about these routes with respect to fares. Only that perhaps there is more competition.

They are famous among aviation enthusiasts simply as a way to get access to airlines that one might otherwise have to travel great distances to try.

What drives down their fares is this:

If an airline based in A is running a flight A>B>C, they can’t feed any pax to B except from A, or carry pax further than C (without interlining). So there’s a bit more of an incentive to sell tickets B>C while other airlines flying that route can sell tickets to a much wider array of passengers (coming from pre-B (but not A) or going post-C).

You're right, and the fare is cheaper, but there are also downsides (usually frequency). Product varies a lot as well, the reasons for choosing an Emirates 5th freedom product are usually different from picking a different (5th freedom) airline on a route.

And more to go wrong since a replacement plane is a big ways away!

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