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Airline Codeshare Alliances

Marketing Boon and Revenue Management Information Systems Challenge

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Abstract

The paper juxtaposes the challenges that airline codeshare alliances create for analytical information systems on the one hand and their motivation from a marketing perspective on the other. The authors review the state-of-the-art literature on potential marketing benefits and analyze the impact on airline planning systems. In this regard, revenue management systems are of particular interest. Based on a simulation study, the authors infer a severe impact of decentralized codeshare controls as currently widely implemented in the industry on revenue management performance. In the scenarios examined, complementary codesharing reduces alliance-wide revenues by up to 1 %. Losses increase when a carrier experiences high local demand or a high degree of codeshare demand, and disseminate over the whole network. Virtual codeshares also cause losses of 0.3 % to 1.5 % depending on the discount level offered by the marketing carrier and on the demand structure. Finally, the authors formulate a set of managerial implications based on these findings.

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Correspondence to Max Gerlach.

Additional information

Accepted after two revisions by Prof. Dr. Spann.

This article is also available in German in print and via http://www.wirtschaftsinformatik.de: Gerlach M, Cleophas C, Kliewer N (2013) Codeshare-Allianzen bei Fluggesellschaften. Ein Segen für das Marketing und eine Herausforderung für Informationssysteme im Revenue-Management. WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK. doi: 10.1007/s11576-013-0361-7.

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Gerlach, M., Cleophas, C. & Kliewer, N. Airline Codeshare Alliances. Bus Inf Syst Eng 5, 153–163 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-013-0262-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-013-0262-8

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