Spatially Characterizing Major Airline Alliances: A Network Analysis

An airline alliance is a group of member airlines that seek to achieve the same goals through routes and airports. Hence, airports’ connectivity plays an essential role in understanding the linkage between different markets, especially the impact of neighboring airports on focal airports. An airline alliance airport network (AAAN) comprises airports as nodes and routes as edges. It could reflect a clear collaborative proportion within AAAN and competitive routes between AAANs. Recent studies adopted an airport- or route-centric perspective to evaluate the relationship between airline alliances and their member airlines; meanwhile, they mentioned that an airport community could provide valuable air transportation information because it considers the entire network structure, including the impacts of the direct and indirect routes. The objectives are to identify spatial patterns of market region in an airline alliance and characterize the differences among airline alliances (Oneworld, Star Alliance, and SkyTeam), including regions of collaboration, competition, and dominance. Our results show that Star Alliance has the highest collaboration and international market dominance among three airline alliances. The most competitive regions are Asia-Pacific, West Asia, Europe, and North and Central America. The network approach we proposed identifies market characteristics, highlights the region of market advantages in the airline alliance, and also provides more insights for airline and airline alliances to extend their market share or service areas.