Airline Alliances Partner Selection in Uncertain Environment: A Fuzzy Hybrid Evaluation Model Based on BSC

With respect to the importance of commercial alliances in airline hypercompetitive environment, partner performance evaluation is a critical matter before making any decision about partnership. In this article, utilizing Fuzzy theory, a hybrid airline evaluation model is developed in a way that all airline performance strategic dimensions are considered, as well as, it can deal with qualitative and imprecise criteria and measures. In this way, the Balanced Score Card (BSC) methodology is employed to determine main criteria, beside considering passengers’ and experts’ viewpoints simultaneously. Since the used indicators are ambiguous and imprecise and respondents are facing them through linguistic vagueness, Fuzzy theory has been used to model the uncertainty. In the next step, a real problem based on partner selection in the Airline of the Islamic Republic of Iran is considered and three airlines’ characteristics were analyzed through developing hierarchical decision tree. The Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) method is used for computing weight factors and relative importance of main criteria and their measures, and the performance of three airlines are analyzed and then the ranked using Fuzzy TOPSIS. Finally, the proposed model is revalidated based on total agreement of experts.