At the moment an alliance membership has no real advantages. What about a little reward for alliance members ? May be the costs for interlining agreements between the members could be reduced and/or less staff is needed for the interlining ? Or the image for connection flights between menbers of the same alliance could get a better rating than the standard rating, 
totally, in the beginning i thought If i was in an alliance I would not need interlining any more with other members and the passengers could be handled just like interlining, but no…
So I am now enjoying my free play in Meigs, no hurry
There is one advantage though, but it’s not something built directly into the game: You can coordinate arrival and departure times at the alliance hubs, streamlining connections there and ensuring that you get the best possible rating from your connecting flights.
That and the knowledge and creativity some alliances have are some reasons to join one anyway, even if at this time the game itself doesn’t provide any benefits for being a part of an alliance.
There can be no such benefits - it does not make sence. How does you joining a voluntary organization makes interlining costs cheaper for you? How does it make less people necessary for interlining? 
Alliances are a great tool how to enjoy the game - they are communities. As in real world.
Sure…so in real world Star Alliance, Sky Team and One World are just communities for fun reasons
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Not kidding - alliances are in real life also more a (hopefully worldwide known) branding. Interlining is still closed between the airlines bilateral and there is no need (and isn’t done in real life) that each airline has a interlining/codeshare agreemend with each other airline in the alliance. Joint Ventures like common purchasing projects etc. are also only bilateral and are far away of beeing an alliance wide cost efficience process. The one and only reason where an alliance (looks like) having an advantage is moving check-in at the airport together and using one lounge or so.
And in many cases the real world alliances have certain demands that need to be fulfilled before a member is allowed to join and costs are incurred for the alliance membership. So any financial benefits received would be offset by costs incurred. Better just to coordinate cheaper handling etc. within the alliance through service contracts.
I think it would be realistic for an individual airline’s image to be affected by the alliance that they are member to. In the real world if I am looking for an airline, knowing that it is in alliance with my airline of choice influences my decision to fly with them.
The Alliance system would be a lot more powerful if other things were allowed in the game.
I’m thinking of -
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private loans with individually negotiated terms and conditions
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ditto aircraft sales and leasing
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ditto slot selling
Great way how to allow cheating!
Yep. Those features are an invitation to cheating!
Alliance is a potential factor incorporate with Marketing and Goodwill. Alliance should have closer relationship than just IL partners or I should say better benefit for each other.
I believe we will see more function in the future for Alliance, as the marketing factor haven’t really included in AS.
Just an example from a RL alliance.
Scroll to the bottom and even they advicate only real benefits are cost savings on Handling (Lounges dont exist in Sim so we’ll leave that).
Perhaps there is a slight image increase (through marketing) and also ease of travel across a vast network (inconnecting flights etc) but really handling charges are the only real benefit.
Maybe it could be introduced that alliances get discounted ground handling costs at airports where more than one member flies into. Or perhaps even an "Alliance Bank Account" whereby all members contribute a cost to be a member and then the alliance can build terminals around the world (thus giving out handling contracts to alliance members), money couldnt be transferred anywhere else or spent on planes etc, literally only terminals. Just an idea, I expect coding would be a nightmare
It’s all well and good advocating that being an Alliance member should have advantages in game, but if there is a financial of efficiency advantage to be gained then everyone would just join an alliance and put everyone effectively onto level ground.
You have to explain what your definition of cheating is.
I think that one thing that would also make alliances interesting is for it to affect your image. The alliance image would be factored depending on the amount of connections possible between all members of the alliance, the connection time, the image and service level of the individual companies in the alliance, the number of airports served and average price. This would help alliance members better cooperate with each other and set a standard service or minimum service standard for all of the members. It could also help alliances and individual companies better select their partners.
Well all of the above are at the current setting seen as cheating. Giving "free loans" to kill competition, buying airplanes by big companies and selling them cheap to the tinier companies and especially selling the slots - slots are strictly forbidden to block and buy/sell. They are publicaly availible and such possibility would lead to the practice that domestic companies gets a lot of small planes and blocks out the competing companies.
It seems in this game that there is no real benefit to be in an Alliance, other than being able to have a forum to communicate to all your interlining partners.
In RL Alliance, like Star, Oneworld, etc, there is a real benefit for an Airline to belong to one, and those member airlines pay quite a fee to belong to one.
There is a marketing aspect to it, like being a member of a chain, or franchise, but that is not all to it.
These include:
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Frequent Flyer points can be earned and redeemed within the Alliance members = sticky customer who will think twice flying with an airline who don’t belong to his FF programmes he belong to.
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Alliances have special tickets/offerings.
e.g. round the world, circle and explorer tickets, which are serviced by its members.
These are special discounted rates for the customer who booked tickets like those, instead of flying the same individual legs on the exact same airlines and booking classes. Promotes / increased sales of tickets system wide to all members belonging to the alliance, instead of each airline relying on it’s own marketing/promotions.
- Code sharing and IL agreements between alliance members.
Individual airlines might have had IL agreements prior to belonging to an alliance, but not code shares.
And similarly a member might not have had IL agreements with all other members of the alliance prior to joining.
But when they become a member of the Alliance, they all agree to code share all or the majority of their flights with other members and IL with all other exiting members.
For a member airline, a code share is better than an IL, because if you sold the ticket, most of the revenue of that ticket goes back in your pocket, compared to an IL, where most of the revenue goes to the operating airline and you only get 5% commission.
In addition as the member airline, because of code sharing, a percentage of your aircraft seats are always booked, even without a single ticket sold, because those are reserved for other airlines booking code share tickets.
You have made an instant sale by just having a code-share agreement, revenue you received from the Alliance for your seats.
- Alliances also promotes other agreements, like handling (sharing of ticket counter and check-in agents in particular) and preferred parking at the certain airport terminals/gates. Some have baggage handling agreements too.
E.g. in OR Tambo Airport in Johannesburg, prior to the airport expansion, SAA domestic and international and the Star Alliance members almost always got a gate, when they arrive and in fact the airport will reserve gates for them. Most other domestic airlines including BA and international flights got ramps, or if they did, they got the gate which was furthest away ones from the terminal. I saw similar behaviour at Heathrow too, where if you belong the Oneworld, you park at certain terminals where BA flights park, not with the rest.
I know in the RL, it is a big deal to belong to an alliance and which alliance you belong to. There are certainly criteria each airline have to meet, and that includes things like safety ratings, rules maintenance of A/C, baggage limits, etc.
One airline was kicked out of Star Alliance for violating stipulated maintenance rules.
So in RL, an Alliance is not just some community or forum or “click”.
I think at the very least code sharing could be implemented in this game and if you belong to an Alliance, improved ticket sales, vs. not belonging to any alliance.
Increase in sales should be a factor according to the size of the alliance. E.g. belonging to a big alliance should promote more sales than a small unkown one.
Stopping at a Alliance member hub should give you better turn around times for your A/C, than stopping at a non member airport/terminal.
Just my 2 cents worth…
There is one in game feature I would like: The option to set IL for members to auto accept. Some people just like to go for long holidays ...
@Norljus : Setting auto accept for IL for members of the same alliance could be hell for some people. I mean, i see some huge alliances with over 20+ members..i would NOT want all of those members to automatically IL with me..that would be a nightmare for me.
As for the benefits of an alliance, you can select WHO joins your alliance. You have to think of an alliance as a team. I'll try to demonstrate as to why an alliance would be great.(This is just a small example).
So you have an alliance with 6 members: 1 in Canada, 1 in the US, 1 in Mexico, 1 in Morocco, 1 in Israel, 1 in India. The alliance members can chose to have one HUB outside of all of these countrys that they will concider the alliances main HUB. So..let's say all of them chose to have Paris(CDG) in France as their main HUB.
In this case, you would have 6 different airlines in 6 different countrys creating a central HUB in a 7th country of their choice. They can precisly decide of the arrival and departure times at that HUB and hence all have flights directed to that HUB. This creates an alliance HUB that would be in the center and offer the alliance members lots of transfer options in all directions.
This also gives EXTRA rights to certain airlines. In this case, the airline in Morocco and the airline in Israel can't have direct flights to each other due to bans. BUT, because they send their passengers to France, these two airlines can give each other transfer passengers.
The more alliance members you add, the more powerful your alliance becomes. Because you are timing everything accordingly and hence killing off all possible competition!