The Impact of Airline Code-sharing on Product Quality

We investigate the impact of domestic code-sharing alliances on airline on-time performance (OTP). We examine this issue in the US airline industry, where major domestic carriers are required to report their OTP. Our analysis yields two main findings. First, consistent with the literature, we find that the overwhelming majority of domestic code-share itineraries involve a single operating carrier, a practice we refer to as virtual code-sharing. Second, and most importantly, we find that code-share itineraries are associated with less arrival delay relative to itineraries marketed and operated by a single carrier.