So too are its partners in Star, the largest of the international airline alliances, Lufthansa and Air Canada.

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Were United to fly no more, there would be big consequences for the airline alliances, partnerships formed to skirt rules blocking international mergers.

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Over the past year the gulf airlines have expanded their investments and routes and in doing so are slowly disrupting, some say destroying, the airline alliances.

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The idea was to outshine other airline alliances, which are essentially joint marketing arrangements, with a link that cut costs as well, by sharing aircraft and ground facilities.

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Most carriers of any size have joined one of the three big airline alliances oneworld, SkyTeam and Star but Virgin has stayed apart, and now the alliances may no longer feel inclined to woo it.

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Add to this the investment in state-of-the-art airports and vast new plane fleets, as well as the acquisition of stakes in some of Europe's biggest airlines which have ruptured traditional airline alliances, and it is clear why more and more commercial traffic is making a pit-stop in the region.

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The number of alliances in the airline industry soared by 38% to 500 in the year to spring 1998, according to Airline Business, a trade magazine partly because there are usually national barriers to foreign ownership.

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But as a recent rash of strikes shows, airline companies have found that building global alliances is creating all sorts of problems for them, from regulatory tangles to growing resentment and fear from their own workers.

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As alliances begin to pool these activities, they will re-shape the airline industry from within.

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