Ranking of the Factors Affecting Airlines’ Strategic Alliance Success Using experts’ views

This research is conducted with the aim of ranking the factors affecting the success of airlines’ strategic alliance, using experts’ points of view. For this purpose, based on the Hoffmann and Schlosser’s (2001) model for "Success Factors of Strategic Alliances", stages of the alliance evolution and its success factors were determined. Afterwards, the effect of these factors on the index of strategic alliance success and partners' satisfaction, were evaluated using the following criteria: financial success, market success, competitive condition improvement, and sustainability of the alliance. In this regard, points of view of 13 airline experts were sought. The initial questionnaire was formed out of the primary data taken from the interviews and observations, as well as the secondary data from library studies, which provided the tool for assessing the factors with most impact on the success of the airlines’ strategic alliances. Applying AHP, and with the help of the second questionnaire, the mentioned factors were ranked based on their impact on the alliance’s success. The resulted model indicated that the elements of alliance strategy symmetry with organization strategy, top management support, complementary competencies, trust-based mutual relationship, and agreement of fundamental values and objectives, all had an impact on the strategic alliance success or failure. Findings also revealed that the two factors of alliance strategy symmetry with organizational strategy, and the partner selection stage, had the most impact on the success of airlines strategic alliance. It has also been cleared that the market success was the confident criterion for evaluation of airlines alliance success