The effect of strategic alliances to the competitive power in civil aviation: Example of Turkish airlines-Star Alliance cooperation

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the effect of strategic alliances with the power of competition in Civil Aviation. Today, the number of airlines and flight networks is increasing through the highly competitive environment. In Turkey, with the highest rate of the market share, Turkish Airlines, appears to be a sustainable competitive advantage. With the participation of the most biggest alliance, Star Alliance, Turkish Airlines is found worth to find out if this participation has an effect on sustainable competitive advantage. Through this thesis, Turkish Airlines – Star Alliance cooperation has been examined with the help of Balanced Scorecard method' s extents. During the collection of the needed information, method of observation and documentation has been used. This thesis consists of three parts. In the first part, there is information on the general literature of the strategic alliances. In the second part, there is general evaluation about strategic alliances in Civil Aviation. In the last part of the thesis, the effect of Turkish Airlines – Star Alliance cooperation to the competitive power of Turkish Airlines has been examined with the help of the Balanced Scorecard method.