American and JetBlue will stop selling seats on one another’s flights next Friday, two months after a federal judge ruled that the airlines’ partnership within the Northeast violated antitrust laws.
The judge ordered the airlines to finish their greater than two-year partnership, which allowed them to share passengers and revenue, and to coordinate schedules within the northeastern U.S. The airlines argued they needed to team up to higher compete with rivals Delta and United at congested airports serving Recent York City and Boston.
The Justice Department, six states and the District of Columbia sued to dam that partnership, winning their case on May 20.
A JetBlue Airways plane passes behind an American Airlines jet waiting to taxi at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
“We’re dissatisfied to be ending popular advantages like codesharing and reciprocal loyalty advantages,” Dave Fintzen, vp of the Northeast Alliance at JetBlue, said in a press release. “With the court’s recent ruling and the termination of the NEA, we’ve got to sunset them briefly order.”
JetBlue last week said it would not appeal the ruling so it will probably focus as an alternative on its $3.8 billion acquisition of Spirit Airlines, a deal which the Justice Department has also challenged, though JetBlue said it didn’t agree with the judge’s ruling on the Northeast Alliance. American, nevertheless, said it still plans to appeal the ruling on the Northeast Alliance.
Earlier this week, the carriers’ web sites still showed flight options on one another’s airline through the year-end holidays but such sales will only proceed through July 20.
Each airlines said they’d work with customers with existing bookings so their plans aren’t disrupted.
“That is just step one within the wind-down process that can happen over the approaching months,” American said in a release. “We’ll proceed to work with the JetBlue team to make sure customers who’ve existing codeshare bookings can travel seamlessly without disruption to their travel plans.”
Thursday can be the last day that customers can use American AAdvantage frequent flyer miles to book flights on JetBlue.
