American Airlines Sues JetBlue As Collaboration Dialogue Fails
The talks were meant to strengthen the network and loyalty program
The partnership deliberation between American Airlines and JetBlue Airways has ended after the collapse of the Northeast Alliance (NEA).
Steve Johnson, Vice Chair, American Airlines, stated that the company was filing a lawsuit in a Texas court against JetBlue to recover over $1 million in damages, excluding attorney fees and costs.
Johnson remarked, “We were unable to agree on a construct that preserved the benefits of the partnership we envisioned and made sense operationally or financially.”
Early this year, JetBlue had said it was consulting with multiple airlines to establish a partnership and was willing to allocate more funds for the deal.
The principal benefit of a partnership would be improving the utility of JetBlue’s loyalty points for customers, which is lagging compared to its rivals.
The NEA was announced in July 2020 and received approval from the U.S. Transportation Department days before the end of Republican President Donald Trump’s first term in January 2021.
It allowed the two carriers to coordinate flights and share revenue. The alliance was a part of Texas-based American Airlines’ strategy to gain ground in the New York market, where it had been losing financially.
However, after a non-jury trial in May 2023, the NEA was dissolved and it was observed that the partnership violated federal antitrust law, a ruling later upheld by a Court of Appeals.