Global Airline Alliances: International Regulatory Issues

The air transport industry has remained one of the most regulated and restrictive industries in international trade. Domestic deregulation and liberalization have been progressing at an uneven pace across countries, and liberalization of the international markets has yet to overcome numerous obstacles. Air carriers, on the other hand, need to build up an extensive global network to realize economies of scope and density and to meet consumer demands. To accomplish this, they need to have foreign partners. However, ownership restrictions do not allow for cross-country mergers or takeovers. As a result, alliances have become, and will remain in the near future, the primary means for expanding and strengthening airline global service networks. Alliances have provided a way for carriers to mitigate the limitations of bilateral agreements, ownership restrictions, and licensing and control regulations. In effect, both airlines and governments consider international alliances to be the second best solution to achieve free trade in world aviation. This paper discusses regulatory issues related to international airline alliances. Section 1 provides an overview of the current regulations surrounding alliance frameworks, and Section 2 contains a synthesis of economic analysis of regulatory concerns for international airline alliances. Section 3 discusses international coordination in regulations of airline alliances, and Section 4 provides a summary and conclusion.