The Ni/AlMCM-41 was prepared and applied as the catalyst for the direct conversion of ethene to propene. Based on the results of the broad experimental study, two reaction networks were compared, one consisting of dimerization, isomerization and metathesis and a modified network suggesting the cracking of long-chain olefins. To correlate the experimentally obtained data, the classical Langmuir-Hinshelwood-Hougen-Watson model was applied for both reaction networks. The second network involving catalytic cracking offers a satisfying prediction of the observed product distributions.