Alliances And Partnerships Prove Value During Difficult Times

MIAMI—As fuel prices surge, airlines reroute flights around Middle East airspace closures, and geopolitical uncertainty rattles global markets, alliances, joint ventures and airline partnerships remain not only relevant, but critical during crises.

For airlines navigating disruptions, partnerships have evolved far beyond loyalty programs and lounge reciprocity. They now serve as operational safety nets, allowing carriers to reroute passengers, share demand flows, stabilize long-haul economics and preserve network reach during volatile periods. “You don’t wake up the first day of the crisis with flexibility,” retired Copa Airlines CCO Dennis Cary said on a panel at the Aviation Festival Americas conference in Miami on June 4. “You spend a lot of time and energy making sure that’s built into your business model.”

That flexibility depends on partnerships. American Airlines head of partnerships Jeff Ogar pointed out that nearly every long-haul route in American’s network relies on partner feed to remain profitable. Flights to South America, Europe, Japan and Australia depend on connectivity from partners including British Airways (BA), Iberia, Japan Airlines (JAL) and Qantas. “All of our flights into those cities make money because our partners support them,” Ogar said.

Recent airspace disruptions between Asia and Europe caused by wars provided another real-world example. With traditional routings constrained, passengers have been rerouted via partner hubs through the US using JAL and Qantas connections. “That resiliency gives us a unique advantage,” Ogar said.

Executives also pushed back on the idea that alliances were losing relevance in favor of antitrust immunized joint ventures and bilateral partnerships. Oneworld VP of commercial and loyalty Roger Blackburn argued the two structures serve different purposes. “Joint ventures obviously allow really deep levels of cooperation in particular geographies,” Blackburn said. “But the alliance is the brand, it’s the customer promise, it’s the thing the customer most understands.”

The former BA executive described alliances as forums where airlines compare notes, coordinate responses and sometimes simply help each other through turbulent periods. “Sometimes it feels like therapy,” he quipped.

For long-haul focused airlines without extensive short-haul feed, those relationships can be especially important. Virgin Atlantic VP Americas David Hodges said partnerships extend the airline’s reach far beyond what its own network could support. “Our partnership with Delta Air Lines gives us huge amounts of connections, visibility and reach,” he said, while a partnership in India with IndiGo helps Virgin Atlantic distribute traffic deeper into the country.

Executives said the focus has moved from simply coordinating schedules and revenue toward removing friction from the customer journey. “The real wins for us in our partnerships moving forward are fundamentally how you improve the customer journey,” he said.

Technology and personalization are becoming intertwined with those efforts as airlines work to create more seamless experiences across alliance and joint venture networks. Ogar said American wants customers to view alliance partners almost interchangeably. “When you fly BA, it doesn’t hurt American from a revenue standpoint,” he said. “We’ve created mental neutrality.”

Even with airlines outside the global alliance structure, partnerships are becoming necessary. French Bee CCO Zemourda Aissaoui said the long-haul LCC has relied on interline agreements to extend access beyond Paris to destinations like Tahiti, La Reunion and the Caribbean while preserving its low-cost model. “We are not in this alliance business because it’s not our business model,” Aissaoui said. “But we have implemented partnerships to make it possible.”

BermudAir CCO John Pepper said the three-year-old carrier is actively pursuing interline and codeshare agreements as it expands its network across North America and the Caribbean. For smaller carriers especially, he said, partnerships can determine whether routes succeed or fail. “One or two passengers can make a huge difference,” he said.