Airline Alliances Vs Joint Ventures: What's The Difference?

Summary Different types of airline agreements include alliances & joint ventures, benefiting airlines and passengers by offering more routes and options. Star Alliance, oneworld, and SkyTeam are the three main global alliances, with each offering unique benefits and opportunities for member airlines. Joint ventures involve sharing revenues on specific routes, requiring significant negotiations and often government approval due to potential competition issues.

There are many different types of agreements between airlines, offering different ways for them to work together. In this article, we take a look at the differences between airline alliances and joint ventures – for both airlines and passengers. The airline alliance – working together The airline alliance as we know it today really started in the late 1990s, and today, there are three main global alliances: Star Alliance oneworld SkyTeam.

The idea is for airlines within the alliance to work closer together, and to offer ticketing and frequent flier benefits to passengers across all members. This allows airlines to compete better than they could on their own, offering more routes and options to passengers. While some airlines within an alliance will offer enhanced codeshare services, and some go further with joint ventures, there are no requirements for members to do this.

Airlines do, however, have to offer frequent flier benefits to members of other airline schemes. This includes the ability to earn and redeem milea.