There are global players in many industries and to get to be global often they acquire large national companies in countries to expand to those markets.
Why is it with Airlines that there are no global companies owning airlines across multiple nations?
Virgin is the closest I can think of and even they do not actually own the airlines, just the name in some places (Australia).
My only thought is that airlines are not exactly huge profit centres?
In: 201
Basically it all comes down to money.
Airlines don’t make much money, so when a government helps one out, that one usually takes over that market.
So when a second one comes in, it’s usually smaller, and has to piggy back on the original airline routes ( which are not that profitable), airports and so on.
Once those routes become profitable, the original, bigger, airline moves in, so the small one has a hard time to grow.
When shit hits the fan like the pandemic did, the government usually picks one airline and helps it out ( usually they get shares in it and so on, so it becomes half government owned)
When it comes to international traffic, the prices are kind of fixed, so the big players end up with the same routes, same prices and so on.
But they get contracts with local airports, and small local airlines, so that last leg will make a difference in price.
Basically, there’s no point for an airline to have offices all over the planet, deal with the different rules and taxes of each country, when they can do it all from a centralized place where they get money from.
Latest Answers