Airline alliances, antitrust immunity and market foreclosure

Volodymyr Bilotkach and Kai Hüschelrath

ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: We examine the issue of market foreclosure by airline partnerships with antitrust immunity. Overlapping data on frequency of service and passenger volumes on non-stop transatlantic routes with information on the dynamics of airline partnerships, we find evidence consistent with the airlines operating under antitrust immunity refusing to accept connecting passengers from the outside carriers at respective hub airports. Following the antitrust immunity, airlines outside the partnership reduce their traffic to the partner airlines' hub airports by 4.1-11.5 percent. We suggest regulators should take possible market foreclosure effects into account when assessing the competitive effects of antitrust immunity for airline alliances.

Keywords: air transportation; alliances; antitrust immunity; foreclosure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K21 L41 L93 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-com, nep-hme, nep-ind, nep-tre and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/66121/1/729304582.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Airline Alliances, Antitrust Immunity, and Market Foreclosure (2013)
Working Paper: Airline alliances, antitrust immunity and market foreclosure (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:10083r

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