"This will lead to a reduction in competition. There are a number of routes and there are a number of airlines. All the airlines will be evenly poised in the market," Air India chairman and managing director Raghu Menon said on Wednesday.

"Not really. But we are trying to analyse this alliance," he said, asked if Jet and Kingfisher joining hands would affect Air India's market share.

Menon said nothing stopped the airlines in the domestic sector from code sharing. Asked about the global aviation meltdown, the Air India chief said the impact was bad enough.

"It has certainly affected corporate and leisure travellers. Some impact is also felt on the domestic travel market," he said.

"The silver lining, however, is that the Aviation Turbine Fuel prices is going southwards and if it stabilises at around $80 a barrel, we will look at hedging in the international oil market very seriously," Menon added.

Describing the recent economic and aviation market crises as "cyclic events," the state-owned carrier's chief said things would not remain the same.

"The common refrain in the CEO's summit in Hyderabad is that Indian aviation industry will come out stronger, because we have learnt several lessons in this period. This will also lead to reduction of flab, particularly at the operations end," he added.