Star Alliance, SkyTeam, oneworld: what are airline alliances for?

Why ally rather than merge?

No airline can serve every city in the world on its own. It runs into economic limits, but also regulatory ones: traffic rights are negotiated between States, and ownership and control rules often restrict the possibility of buying a foreign airline. Alliances offer a middle way: close cooperation without a merger.

The principle is simple. Each member airline keeps its own identity, fleet and licence, but coordinates part of its offer with its partners to give passengers a coherent global network.

Three global alliances

The landscape today is organised around three major groupings.

Star Alliance describes itself as the first global airline alliance. According to its website, it was founded on 14 May 1997 by five major airlines and now has 26 member airlines.

SkyTeam highlights a network of more than 1,000 destinations in more than 160 countries, more than 13,600 daily departures and more than 750 lounges. Air France and KLM are members.

oneworld lists 15 member airlines on its website, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Iberia, Japan Airlines, Qantas and Qatar Airways, with Philippine Airlines as a future member. The alliance states that S7 Airlines' membership has been suspended since 19 April 2022.

What an alliance offers passengers

For travellers, an airline's membership of an alliance translates into several practical benefits:

• easier connections between partner airlines, with a single ticket and baggage checked through to the final destination;
• recognition of loyalty programmes: miles or points can be earned and redeemed on partner flights;
• lounge access at partner airlines for customers with elite status or travelling in a premium cabin;
• a wider choice of destinations, through codesharing, which lets an airline sell flights operated by a partner under its own code.

What an alliance offers airlines

For airlines, the alliance feeds the hubs. A passenger coming from one continent can be carried to a partner's hub and then distributed across that partner's regional network. Each member thus gains traffic it could not have captured alone.

Alliances also generate savings: shared lounges and airport facilities, and cooperation on ground handling or some purchasing.

Beyond the alliance: joint ventures

The deepest cooperation does not always go through the alliance itself, but through joint ventures between a few members. KLM, for example, cites a transatlantic joint venture with Air France, Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic, and another with Air France and China Eastern Airlines between Europe and China. In this kind of agreement, partners coordinate schedules, capacity and fares on a given market and share revenues or profits.

These joint ventures, which go further than simple codesharing, are reviewed by the competition authorities of the countries concerned, which may impose conditions such as giving up slots.

Limits to be aware of

An alliance is not a single airline. Fare conditions, baggage allowances and ticket change policies can differ from one member to another. In the event of disruption, it is the airline operating the flight, not the alliance, that remains responsible to the passenger, notably under the European passenger rights regulation.

Alliances also change with their members' strategies: airlines switch alliances, others leave or prefer bilateral partnerships. Some airlines, notably among low-cost carriers and several major Gulf airlines, belong to no global alliance and favour tailor-made agreements.