NEWS ANALYSIS : U.S. Seeks to Send Message With Air Threat : Trade: Aviation pact with Japan has its critics on this side of the Pacific, but White House says a principle is at stake.

By going to bat for Federal Express in its battle with the Japanese government, the Clinton Administration is protecting a decades-old aviation agreement that favors a handful of U.S. companies operating lucrative transpacific routes.

It is an agreement with plenty of critics on this side of the Pacific, but the U.S. government says its decision to threaten sanctions against two Japanese airlines over a routes dispute is necessary to show the Japanese government that agreements between countries are not to be violated.

“The one thing we feel critically important is that we have an honoring of the Japanese commitments under the bilateral,” said a top Transportation Department official who asked to remain unnamed.

There is no question that the U.S.-Japan Air Agreement of 1952 gives special rights now held by three U.S. companies--Federal Express, Northwest Airlines and United Airlines--at the expense of other Japanese and even American competitors interested in tapping into the fast-growing Asian markets.

“There’s no getting around the fact that the bilateral is one-sided, and it doesn’t take an advanced degree in geopolitics to figure out why, since it was signed in 1952,” said Paul Schlesinger, an air cargo specialist at Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette in New York.

But analysts also point out that under the agreement, Federal Express should have gotten automatic approval for the routes, over which it has been battling the Japanese government for nearly two years.

“There is absolutely no dispute as to what the bilateral says, and the Japanese read it the same way the U.S. does,” said Greg Smith, an analyst with Colography Group Inc., a Georgia-based consulting firm.

The Japanese government is holding up approval of those Federal Express routes--in effect, holding the air cargo giant hostage--in hopes of getting the United States to renegotiate the 43-year-old agreement.

In response, the Clinton Administration on Monday proposed to restrict cargo carried by Japan Air Lines and Nippon Cargo Airlines from certain as-yet-unnamed Asian countries into the United States. The sanctions would go into effect after a public comment period ends July 14.

On Tuesday, Japan Transport Minister Shizuka Kamei told reporters his government will retaliate if the United States follows through with its threat.

Since air traffic rights are limited by landing slots at airports, international air routes have traditionally been governed with country-to-country agreements.

In 1952, Japan had no national air carrier and U.S. airlines dominated the transpacific market. Under the original pact, two U.S. carriers were granted rights to make cargo and passenger stops in Japan en route to other parts of the world, while a single Japanese airline, JAL, was given the more limited right to travel to a few U.S. cities. Since then, the two U.S. carriers have become three and JAL has been allowed to fly on to Brazil.

The latest eruption has been building for several years, sparked by the Japanese government’s refusal to approve the Federal Express routes. Then, last year the U.S. government retaliated by not allowing JAL to start up scheduled flights between Honolulu and Sendai, Japan.

Federal Express, which acquired the U.S.-Japan routes when it purchased the Flying Tigers cargo carrier in 1989, argues that its rights to fly those routes are now being used as leverage by the Japanese government. The routes are part of the company’s efforts to develop an Asian overnight service using a newly built trans-shipment facility in Subic Bay, Philippines.

In recent years, FedEx has concentrated on expanding its service to Asia, where the world’s fastest-growing economies are creating a huge demand for cargo service.

Doyle Cloud, a FedEx vice president, said there is far more at stake in the aviation dispute than the profits of a few U.S. companies. He said it is in the national interest to maintain U.S. cargo routes that support the increased trade between the United States and Asia.

But the Japanese government isn’t the only one frustrated by the decades-old agreement. American Airlines, which serves Tokyo from several U.S. cities, has urged the United States to move toward an open-skies agreement rather than renegotiating an agreement that has given United and Northwest a “duopoly” over the Pacific.

The Transportation Department official said the U.S. government is willing to “consider a wide range of issues” concerning the bilateral agreement with Japan. But he said those must not be tied to route approvals guaranteed under the existing accord.