The world's airlines started forming alliances a decade ago. They offer a form of consolidation without the full cross-border mergers that most governments have refused to countenance: airlines sell tickets on their routes as if they were through-flights and share such frills as airport lounges and frequent-flier programmes. But now that governments are reducing the regulations that alliances circumvented, the alliances are being undermined. A trade journal, Airline Business, surveys such deals each year, and at the last count found that there were no fewer than 579 bilateral partnerships involving the 220 main airlines. That is an increase of nearly 50% over the past four years. From these alliances have emerged five large groupings (see chart), plus a host of bilateral joint-marketing deals.
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