Tag Archives for jetblue.
A passenger on a JetBlue flight stole a phone charger from an agent at the gate on Friday. They didn’t take the gate agent’s phone – just the charger.
The agent realized their charger was gone, boarded the flight, and announced at the flight isn’t going anywhere until the thief returns it. If the passenger doesn’t come forward, they’ll pull security tapes and figure out who it was anyway. It’s better to fess up!
With American Airlines CEO Robert Isom on the witness stand, government lawyers in the anti-trust trial trying to break up his airline’s partnership with JetBlue asked the executive about JetBlue’s “Mint” product – a lie flat business class that operates on certain domestic and short haul international routes (as well as on their transatlantic routes which are not part of the partnership).
Isom explained that he had know idea what Mint was, or what it entailed, never having flown it or paid attention to it, it seems.
Testimony continues this week in the federal government’s anti-trust trial to break up the American Airlines-JetBlue Northeast Alliance. The government shifted its focus Monday morning away from the partnership the two airlines have in New York, to their arrangement in Boston.
Today’s testimony in the government’s anti-trust trial against the American Airlines-JetBlue Northeast Alliance has featured the CEO of JetBlue and the incoming Chief Operating Officer of Southwest Airlines, which prefers not to see stronger competitors (naturally).
It doesn’t seem like the government made any tangible progress demonstrating anti-competitive effects of the partnership, but the answers given on the stand by senior airline executives are interesting to parse.
American Airlines and JetBlue entered into a partnership they refer to as the ‘Northeast Alliance.’ They have a frequent flyer partnership and they codeshare in and out of New York and Boston. American has moved some of its domestic flying to JetBlue, and JetBlue’s customers have made it possible for American to grow internationally out of New York. Now the government lawsuit to stop it starts today, even though the federal government had previously approved it.
Emirates lost the ability to book redemptions on JetBlue in business class over the summer, suggesting something was up with their partnership. We learned in the past several days that the partnership is actually ending October 30th. But JetBlue isn’t going to be down a partner. Instead a new earning and redemption partnership is coming between JetBlue and Etihad. Etihad also partners with American Airlines and with Air Canada.
JetBlue is still losing money. They’ve set aside nearly $4 billion of their cash to buy Spirit Airlines (really, your cash given the taxpayer subsidies received during the pandemic). So they need more money. They’re trying to generate some with a legitimate fare sale.
Yesterday Spirit Airlines shareholders rejected an agreement to sell to Frontier with JetBlue offering far more money.
Now Spirit’s board has agreed to sell to JetBlue under the same terms as the New York-based carrier’s last offer – a price 40% higher than Frontier was offering at the time it was made a month ago.
JetBlue wants to buy Spirit for parts – gates, slots (though they’d divest many of those), pilots and planes. And they’re willing to pay $400 million for the chance to get the deal to close in the face of government opposition.
Meanwhile the most likely way to get regulatory approval is to trade the American Airlines joint venture, which the federal government is also opposing. If they can make that deal quickly, they can presumably have Spirit.
A year ago Emirates introduced the ability to book award travel on JetBlue. Awards could be booked online, and over the phone they’d even put award space on hold for you to transfer points. And all the major credit card currencies transfer into Emirates Skywards plus they have their own U.S. credit card.
The pricing was good – cheaper, for instance, than using American AAdvantage miles on JetBlue. Routes like New York JFK – Los Angeles (or LA-Miami or Boston – San Francisco) ran 52,000 miles each way, while New York JFK – Aruba would be 40,000 miles.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
