ABSTRACT
The last ten to fifteen years witnessed a substantial increase in the size and depth of airline alliances in international air transportation. From the size perspective, more and more individual airlines have decided to join one of the three remaining global airline alliances – Star, SkyTeam, or oneworld. For example, while the respective alliances were founded between 1997 and 2000 by in sum 14 airlines, the number of member airlines grew to 52 in 2010 – 27 in Star, 13 in SkyTeam and 12 in oneworld. This growth is reflected in basic transportation statistics. For example, in 2008 the three ‘mega alliances’ together transported about 59 per cent of the roughly 2,271 million airline passengers world-wide. 2 Airline alliances have particularly high market shares (at least 70 per cent, based on network capacity) on intercontinental markets, such as the market between North America and Europe.
