Codesharing agreements by low-cost carriers: An explorative analysis

•Explorative analysis related to the involvement of low-cost carriers in codesharing.•In 2011, only one-third of LCCs were engaged in codesharing agreements.•LCCs mainly sign a codesharing as a strategy to improve the airline efficiency.•The spread of this phenomenon varied by geographical area.•Hybridization of LCCs and network concentration affect codeshare practices.

In this paper, we present an explorative analysis related to the involvement of low-cost carriers (LCCs) in codesharing agreements. Our goals are to evaluate the diffusion of the phenomenon across countries, and to identify the determining features of companies with regards to the codesharing propensity of LCCs. We analyzed the worldwide scheduling of LCCs in 2011, revealing that one-third of LCCs were involved in codesharing arrangements in 2011. Yet, only 25% of LCCs are involved in codesharing with carriers to whom they are not hierarchically linked. The spread of this phenomenon varied by geographical area, with LCCs in Europe, Australia–New Zealand, Asia, and North America being most likely to codeshare. The airline size, the hybridization of the carrier's business model and an airline network concentration affect the likelihood to codeshare.