Price Competition between International Airline Alliances

Abstract

This paper develops a model of price competition between two international airline alliances, with consumers' preferences vertically differentiated by the number of stops. Alliances benefit the interline passengers. Alliances with antitrust immunity do not benefit interline passengers more than those without antitrust immunity, in contrast to the Cournot-type settings. While antitrust immunity leads to higher fares for non-stop travel between hubs of alliance partners, granting it might be necessary to induce consolidation between carriers. Formation of alliances with antitrust immunity is consistent with the proposed model, even though such is likely to decrease individual carriers' profit.