Bermuda II, according to an American magazine publisher.

Writing in a recent issue of Travel Agent magazine, Mr. Richard Friese said some members of the House Aviation Subcommittee and the Clinton Administration saw the bilateral deal with the United Kingdom as "grossly unfair'' and favoured renouncing it.

The 1977 US-UK deal, which was signed in Bermuda, replaced the 1946 Bermuda Agreement which controlled air traffic between the two countries.

At the subcommittee's Washington hearings on international aviation policy, "you got the clear impression that Secretary of State Federico Pena was announcing to the world that the renunciation of the US-UK bilateral deal was a distinct possibility,'' Mr. Friese said in the magazine's Publisher's Letter feature.

Mr. Pena said Bermuda II had allowed the British "to increase their market share while our market share has gone down from 60 percent to around 45 percent.

"We must use every tool available to us to advance our interest, which means that the possibility of renunciation will be one of those tools which will be on the table.'' When struck, the agreement was to mean fewer empty seats on transatlantic flights, less wasted fuel, and less cutthroat competition for passengers and freight.

It allowed each country to designate two flag carriers to operate on the highly-profitable New York-London and Los Angeles-London routes, and increased to 14 from nine the number of US airports from which each country could fly to London. The deal allowed the US to select one new "gateway'' point for nonstop air service to London and to fly between Anchorage, Alaska and London.

In the Pacific, the Americans obtained new operating rights from Hong Kong to Singapore, while the British received additional rights between Hong Kong and the US West Coast, via Japan.