ABSTRACT
This chapter describes air cargo alliances and mergers, focusing on those that have been agreed between airlines, excluding forwarders and integrators. As on the passenger side of the business, mergers have been restricted to airlines based in one country to avoid upsetting ownership limits and thus putting into question traffic rights. Regulatory restrictions on market access, ownership and control have pushed airlines towards the formation of strategic alliance groupings. A prorate agreement is a means of sharing the revenue generated from a multi-sector service involving more than one airline. Code sharing refers to the use of an airline designator code of one carrier on a flight actually being flown by another carrier. If two carriers with a considerable overlap to their networks are involved, frequency might be reduced and rates increased to the detriment of the consumer. The network changes of KLM and NWA were examined from 1987 to 1998 although the effect of their alliance cannot be isolated.
