Airline alliances - what future? Global, multilateral and bilateral partnerships are all evolving

Have the global airline alliances been effective at generating cost efficiencies, or is their value limited to revenue benefits? Can bilateral partnerships be as effective as a branded global alliance? Do the immunised joint ventures within the alliances have a destabilising impact on those alliance members that are not also JV members? Should the alliances attract LCCs to join their ranks?

At CAPA's World Aviation Summit in Amsterdam on 26-27-Nov-2013, Professor Rigas Doganis led a discussion on these and other questions examining the state of the world's three global airline alliances. Panellists included the CEOs of two of the alliances and executives from an airline that is an alliance member, but not in a joint venture, and from a hybrid LCC that is outside the alliance system.