India's two largest private airlines Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines on Monday joined hands and announced an alliance for sharing of their network and resources to meet the challenge of aviation downturn caused by rising crude prices.

The two companies on Monday announced an unprecedented alliance, that will command nearly 60 per cent market shares of the domestic skies, to survive the difficult times facing the airline industry.

The scope of the alliance includes cross utilization of crew, cross-selling of flights, common ground handling, joint fuel management to reduce fuel expenses, code sharing on both domestic and international flights and to leverage joint network deploying 189 aircraft of the two airlines.

The airlines are reportedly hit by losses of up to 100 million rupees, or 2 million U.S. dollars each everyday, sources said.

In a joint statement, the two airlines clarified that there will not be any mutual equity investments in the two companies.

'We are coming together to cut costs. It is for the first time two major Indian carriers are coming together in difficult times,' Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal said.

'Our relationship will continue for a long time,' Vijay Mallya chairman of the Kingfisher Airlines said, 'the alliance would be a quantum leap forward. It would benefit customers of both.'

An alliance would enable the two players to save costs and thereby help optimize the load factor especially on non viable routes, an aviation analyst said.