Airline alliances boost productivity

Joining a big airline alliance does not seem to equal greater profits - but does mean better worker productivity, says research by an Auckland academic.

Sussie Morrish, a marketing lecturer at the University of Auckland's Business School, has studied what kind of effect joining an alliance has for airline profits and performance.

Alliances include the Star Alliance, which Air NZ is part of, Oneworld - with Qantas and British Airways - and SkyTeam, which includes Air France/KLM, Delta, Continental and Alitalia.

Her research, presented at a Business School seminar last week, showed that while the number of alliance partners had some effect in raising employee productivity, it had no direct effect on passenger loadings or pricing behaviour.

She also found the size of the alliance did not help airline profitability or mean higher airfares.

Productivity in Morrish's research is measured by the ratio of total passengers carried divided by staff numbers.

Exactly why joining an alliance would increase productivity is not entirely clear, but may be due to reduced duplication of services between alliance members, and so staff headcount.

Morrish looked at statistics covering the years 1985 to 2000. Some effects not covered by her work include how loyalty to an alliance could affect potential customers.

Another topic Morrish said needed study was a comparison between the different alliances. That could show whether the impact of joining up changed depending on which alliance was chosen.