International market entry strategies of EU and Asia-Pacific low fare airlines

We employ Dunning's eclectic paradigm (OLI) to shed light onto low fare airlines' (LFA) internationalization strategies. In addition to 31 European LFA, we also analyze the internationalization strategies of 41 LFA in the Asia-Pacific region. The results indicate that in Europe rather homogenous groups of LFA emerge with regard to their internationalization strategies and that capital and ownership structure as well as relative timing seems to be especially closely related to their entry modal choice. Even though the Asia-Pacific airlines operate under a significantly less liberal regulatory regime, their internationalization strategies resemble those of their European counterparts. We formulate propositions for future research and discuss inferences for the use of the OLI paradigm in further studies of airline internationalization.