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Airline alliances and antitrust policy: The role of efficiencies

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  • Bilotkach, Volodymyr
  • Hüschelrath, Kai

Abstract

The paper discusses selected antitrust implications of airline alliances. In addition to a categorization of airline alliances and a brief discussion of their key competitive effects, our focus is on an assessment of efficiencies triggered by various degrees of airline cooperation. We find that most types of efficiencies can only be considered as partly immunity-specific and should therefore enter an assessment of the economic effects of antitrust immunity only with the respective incremental benefits.

Suggested Citation

  • Bilotkach, Volodymyr & Hüschelrath, Kai, 2012. "Airline alliances and antitrust policy: The role of efficiencies," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 76-84.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaitra:v:21:y:2012:i:c:p:76-84
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jairtraman.2011.12.019
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Camelia Monica Gheorghe & Dorin Ivascu & Mihai Sebea & Cristina Stoenescu, 2017. "Exploring The Role Of Alliances, Agreements And Partnerships In The Airline Industry; The Case Of Apg Network Within The Romanian Market," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 4, pages 161-168, August.
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    3. Wanke, Peter & Barros, C.P., 2016. "Efficiency in Latin American airlines: A two-stage approach combining Virtual Frontier Dynamic DEA and Simplex Regression," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 93-103.
    4. Gudmundsson, Sveinn Vidar & Merkert, Rico & Redondi, Renato, 2017. "Cost functions and determinants of unit cost effects in horizontal airline M&As," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 444-454.
    5. Volodymyr Bilotkach, 2019. "Airline Partnerships, Antitrust Immunity, and Joint Ventures: What We Know and What I Think We Would Like to Know," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 54(1), pages 37-60, February.
    6. Tsuyoshi Toshimitsu, 2019. "Analysis of Merger Control in a Network Products Market," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 87(5), pages 678-693, September.
    7. Volodymyr Bilotkach & Kai Hüschelrath, 2013. "Airline Alliances, Antitrust Immunity, and Market Foreclosure," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(4), pages 1368-1385, October.
    8. Chao, Ching-Cheng & Kao, Ko-Ting, 2015. "Selection of strategic cargo alliance by airlines," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 29-36.
    9. Barros, Carlos Pestana & Wanke, Peter, 2015. "An analysis of African airlines efficiency with two-stage TOPSIS and neural networks," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 44, pages 90-102.
    10. William Morrison, Jaap de Wit, 2017. "US Open Skies Agreements and Unlevel Playing Fields," LCERPA Working Papers 0104, Laurier Centre for Economic Research and Policy Analysis, revised 01 Aug 2017.
    11. Brueckner, Jan K. & Flores-Fillol, Ricardo, 2020. "Market structure and quality determination for complementary products: Alliances and service quality in the airline industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    12. Jan K. Brueckner & Ricardo Flores-Fillol, 2018. "Airline Alliances and Service Quality," CESifo Working Paper Series 7226, CESifo.
    13. Tsionas, Mike G. & Chen, Zhongfei & Wanke, Peter, 2017. "A structural vector autoregressive model of technical efficiency and delays with an application to Chinese airlines," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 1-10.
    14. Garg, Chandra Prakash, 2016. "A robust hybrid decision model for evaluation and selection of the strategic alliance partner in the airline industry," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 55-66.
    15. Tsuyoshi Toshimitsu, 2018. "Tacit collusion and its welfare effect in a network product market," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(4), pages 1787-1795.
    16. Stöhr, Annika, 2021. "Price effects of horizontal mergers: A retrospective on retrospectives," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 151, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
    17. Alderighi, Marco & Gaggero, Alberto A., 2014. "The effects of global alliances on international flight frequencies: Some evidence from Italy," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 30-33.
    18. Gayle, Philip G. & Thomas, Tyson, 2016. "Assessing firm behavior in carve-out markets: Evidence on the impact of carve-out policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 178-194.
    19. Morrison, William G. & de Wit, Jaap, 2019. "US open skies agreements and unlevel playing fields," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 30-38.
    20. Bilotkach, Volodymyr & Hüschelrath, Kai, 2019. "Balancing competition and cooperation: Evidence from transatlantic airline markets," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-16.
    21. Never, Jan & Suau-Sanchez, Pere, 2020. "Challenging the interline and codeshare legacy: Drivers and barriers for airline adoption of airport facilitated inter-airline network connectivity schemes," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    22. Piotr Niewiadomski, 2013. "International airline groups in Africa," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series ctg-2013-36, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    23. Button, Kenneth & Porta, Flavio & Scotti, Davide, 2020. "The role of strategic airline alliances in Africa," MPRA Paper 108265, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    24. Wanke, Peter & Pestana Barros, Carlos & Chen, Zhongfei, 2015. "An analysis of Asian airlines efficiency with two-stage TOPSIS and MCMC generalized linear mixed models," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 110-126.

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