American Airlines and Norwegian forge new partnerships for global reach: CAPA Americas Summit

American Airlines' recent pursuit of China Southern, and Norwegian's partnership discussions with Ryanair, reflect the multiple changing dynamics that airlines operating across all business models must face as they maximise network connectivity to remain relevant and competitive. American had to drift outside oneworld to gain an important foothold in China, while Norwegian stresses that traditional airline partnership structures are not viable for its business model.

But despite American's attention grabbing decision to take a small equity stake in China Southern, the agreement appears to be a one off event. American has no plans to join rival Delta in pursuing stakes in airlines around the world to attain network longevity. American's position is that its current and prospective joint venture agreements provide anchors in the most important global regions.

For Norwegian, a potential tie up with other low cost airlines allows the company to offer network breadth to the pool of passengers it intends to stimulate with new narrowbody service to the US, but without the frills and expense inherent in more complex airline partnerships.