Development of a synergy audit model for sustainability of horizontal airline alliances

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:For more than a decade there has been an economic need to mitigate the negative effects ofthe air transport industry's innate sensitivity to cyclical developments as well as the effects ofits inherent lack of substantial profits. The past 20 years were additionally marked by achange in policy that prompted various countries to liberalise and privatise their civilpassenger air transportation industry. At the same time, airlines' business ambitions becamemore global, tapping into markets beyond countries' or continents' main gateways. All threeaspects started to change the pattern of airline competition and required new business models.Key features of airlines' novel business models are geographic expansion and thus marketdevelopment. Global expansion strategies and market development activities in passenger airtransportation are, however, not easily and fluidly executable. The airline industry is, to someextent, still nationally regulated, thus impeding passenger airlines from fully participating inthe global market-scene and from freely entering promising geographies. Concomitantly, thecompetitive landscape in which scheduled passenger airlines operate changed drastically, withtravel value chains occasionally undergoing revolutionary transformations on both the supplyand the demand side. Finally, the air transport service reveals several peculiarities that impactits production, distribution and consummation. These characteristics have inspired theexecution of novel forms of competitive strategies that are described and critically discussedin this dissertation.Within this context, a main root cause for passenger airline partnerships appears to be itscontinued regulation and the circumvention thereof through the horizontal joining of forces,thus emulating concentration tendencies that have long been a fixture in other globalisingindustries. Consequently, horizontal interairline partnerships were induced and identified as akey competitive device with which to weather the challenges of the new air transport rivalrystructures, the increasingly deregulated environment, and the impediments of sustainedmarket regulation.All major airlines are now involved in some type of horizontal collaboration. The spectrum ofthese linkages is wide and ranges from loose, unattached, operative agreements to long-term,far-reaching, strategic ones, the most salient forms and instruments of which are thoroughlyscrutinised in this dissertation. This dissertation additionally presents the general coreinducing economic drivers of carrier interrelationship, which are cost reduction, revenuegeneration and corporate power considerations. While these aspects offer a multitude ofpossible partnership forms and instruments, the bulk of airline linkages, however, is presentlyconstituted of joint revenue generation and, consequently, jointly pursued marketing andmarket expansion goals. In view of these causes, the present dissertation engages in aprofound discussion of the rationales behind interairline partnerships, their likely evolutionand effects on management practice.Essentially, the key importance of airline partnerships in meeting basic economic imperativeson the one hand, while circumventing persistent regulation on the other, questions thesustainability of incumbent carriers' current business models. There are clear indications thata structured sequence of events in establishing interairline linkages is a key success factor forhorizontal airline partnerships. However, the empirical examination of contemporarypartnerships' governance structures and managerial practice strongly points to a lack of ampletools with which to establish airline partnerships, select the appropriate match betweenalliance goals and intensity, and govern alliances during their entire life-cycles. Thisdrawback seems particularly unacceptable in view of the urgent requirement for moreappropriate managerial practice in today's discontinuous air transport business environment,and speaks loudly of the need for a framework with which to enhance airline partnershipoutput. Most ideally, a coherent, structured sequence of events should be followed inpartnership formation, organisational set-up and management in order to bring an alliance tofruition.On this basis, the establishment of a collaboration governance organisation, adequatelymirroring the specific partnership type and meeting the specific demands of all partnersinvolved, is equally identified and described as a fundamental success driver in thisdissertation. Further structural, organisational and functional issues thereafter need to beconsidered in order to transform the joint business venture of two horizontally allied carriersinto a venture for mutual success. The most essential of these are introduced in thisdissertation.Synergy plays a central role in this context. Synergy, as the overreaching intention and resultof working together towards a common goal, must be anchored as a prime objective of allforms of partnership activities. Synergy through interfirm linkages can be derived fromvarious collaborative areas and is greatly influenced by both internal and external factors. Onegauge for synergy, in particular for the transformation of synergy potentials into synergyeffects, is partnership intensity. The measurement of partnership intensity can be used toperpetually monitor the benefits of partnership activities. At the same time, inconsistent or uneven partnership intensity can indicate the existence of dissynergies or frailties in thealliance. The underlying theories of collaborative synergy generation, its main drivers andimpediments, with particular reference to horizontal partnerships of scheduled passengerairlines, are explored in this dissertation.In recognition of the theoretical and practical background of airline partnerships and theacknowledged problems associated with their establishment and operation, the presentdissertation proposes a novel model dynamically supporting the quest for synergy in airlineinterrelationships. Incorporating the goals of synergy generation and its continualmeasurement in interairline partnerships, the synergy audit is designed as a dynamicmanagerial tool. The synergy audit functions as a recurring device for unleashing all thepositive partnership benefits of collaborative scope and width. It aids airline alliancemanagement in transforming the desired benefits of partnership activities - synergypotentials - into real, tangible synergy effects during the entire partnership life cycle. The toolA.PIE (Airline Partnership Intensity Evaluator) supports the synergy audit and, whichidiosyncratic to the airline industry, multidimensionally applies the deduced relationship ofpartnership intensity and synergy to the most salient partnership areas and functions.The present dissertation shapes understanding of the true drivers and complexities of today'sairline partnerships. It proposes a circular, multidimensional and dynamic model, thusattempting to enhance the set-up, performance and output of horizontal airline collaboration.From this point of view it endeavours to fill the gap identified in contemporary airlinepartnership management and practice.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University