This study provides further empirical evidence on pricing by international airline alliances. The paper covers a long sample period, which runs from 1997 to 2016, and it supplements the usual USDOT fare data with confidential fare data reported by the foreign alliance partners of US carriers. The empirical results for connecting service match earlier findings, with alliances charging lower fares than nonaligned carriers. In contrast to almost all previous studies, the gateway-to-gateway results imply that, in the latter part of the sample period, granting antitrust immunity to two previously nonaligned carriers is equivalent to removing a competitor, with a consequent increase in fares. However, a simulation based on the results shows that this anticompetitive effect is more than offset by gains to connecting passengers, making alliances beneficial on balance.

这项研究为国际航空公司联盟的定价提供了进一步的经验证据。本文涵盖了从1997年到2016年的漫长采样期，并用美国航空公司的外国联盟合作伙伴报告的机密票价数据补充了通常的USDOT票价数据。连接服务的经验结果与早期发现相符，联盟收取的费用比未结盟的航空公司低。与几乎所有以前的研究相比，从网关到网关的结果表明，在采样期的后半段，授予两个以前不结盟的承运人反托拉斯豁免权等同于删除竞争对手，从而导致票价上涨。但是，根据结果进行的模拟显示，这种反竞争效果远不止于增加了转机乘客的收益，