The Evolution of Airline Partnerships in the U.S. Domestic Market

This paper describes the evolution of the four largest airlines in the U.S. domestic market and focuses on the relationships between the mainline airlines and sets of regional airlines that provide feeder services through contract arrangements. The paper traces the series of mergers occurring over the last 20 years that have resulted in the current industry structures and organization and shows the dominance of the top four carriers directly as well as through their relationships with the main regional airlines. The current structure reflects the impact of different types of contractual arrangements and agreements that have shaped relationships between large numbers of airlines in the domestic U.S. market since deregulation in 1978. The paper sets out the rationale for entering into these agreements, the nature of the relationships and the stages of development of current carrier arrangements. A number of public policy issues are highlighted.