7.7. The government of a certain country has decided to change the operating status of state-owned air routes and plans to sell the operating rights of air routes between all 239 cities to private companies. To prevent the loss of state assets, the People's Khural (equivalent to a parliament) passed the following resolution: Among the three air routes connecting any three cities, at least two routes should be sold to the same company. How many companies could possibly obtain the operating rights of these air routes according to this resolution? Provide all possible answers.
7.7. When the number of cities is $n$, the number of companies can be any integer from 1 to $n-1$.

Use mathematical induction to prove: When the number of cities is $n$, the number of companies cannot exceed $n-1$.
For $n=2$, the conclusion is obviously true.
Assume the conclusion holds for $n=k$, prove that when $n=k+1$, according to the resolution passed by the People's Hural, the government can also sell the routes to at most $k$ companies.

Assume at this point the conclusion does not hold, i.e., the government can sell the routes to $k+1$ companies. Arbitrarily select one city $A$, and close all $k$ routes departing from it. By the induction hypothesis, the remaining routes can be sold to at most $k-1$ companies. This means that among the companies that bought the closed routes, there are still two new companies. Suppose the routes $A B$ and $A C$ are sold to these two new companies, then the routes $A B$, $A C$, and $C B$ would be sold to three different companies, which

contradicts the resolution passed by the People's Hural. Therefore, the government can sell the routes to at most $k$ companies. Hence, the conclusion holds for $n=k+1$.

The following example illustrates that the routes can be sold to exactly $n-1$ companies: Let the $n$ cities be denoted as $A_{1}, A_{2}, \cdots, A_{n}$. When $i<j$, sell the route connecting cities $A_{i}$ and $A_{j}$ to the $i$-th company. This plan satisfies the spirit of the resolution passed by the People's Hural and sells the routes to exactly $n-1$ companies.