The federal government won its anti-trust lawsuit against the American Airlines – JetBlue partnership at the district court level. JetBlue decided not to appeal, preferring to focus on its (far more anti-competitive, in my view) acquisition of Spirit Airlines.
American Airlines has been pulling back in New York, focusing on international flights from its Philadelphia hub. JetBlue is giving slots back to American Airlines in New York, while American squats on them – so they don’t have to give back the slots – with flights to places like Philadelphia and Boston. This makes the New York market less competitive, not more competitive. United and Delta are salivating.
As part of the required wind-down of the partnership, it’s no longer possible to make new bookings and take advantage of benefits.
- You can no longer use AAdvantage miles to book JetBlue tickets and vice versa
- You can no longer buy codeshare tickets
- And you can no longer add an American Airlines frequent flyer number to a JetBlue ticket, or a JetBlue frequent flyer number to an American Airlines ticket
American Airlines at New York JFK
However if you already have your frequent flyer number in a booking you are supposed to be entitled to promised benefits like better seats and checked bags.
American Airlines has just pulled the trigger on one more element of unwinding the partnership. The airline no longer has access to seat maps for JetBlue flights. They can’t assign seats for customers who booked through them, and have to tell customers to contact JetBlue for seat assignments.
I’m sad to see this functionality go. Frankly it’s something airlines ought to be able to offer even where they aren’t direct partners, but where it’s possible to include more than one airline on a ticket (where they interline). As it is, airlines often have a hard time assigning seats when a codeshare on another airline is involved and the two carriers are partners, even close partners. Dismantling this capability is just punitive and anti-passenger.
Stripping the two of working together is a terrible thing for the flying public. Just shows that judges are not always correct in their rulings.
Where did you see AA is adding New York to PHL flights?
And to think this is done in the service of Jet Blue acquiring Sprit to take the brand out of the market. It’s just really the regulatory state run amok.
I mean – the seat thing never really worked during the partnership. Always had to go to JetBlue’s site, with the JetBlue PNR, to get seats. No big deal here.
The judge that tore this down however should be forced to spend all future flights in the middle seat in the last row of a post Spirit merger B6 plane.
It seems like a sad day for the flying public.
Oh my. It’s the end of the World. American can no longer assign seats on JetBlue. Oh dear. My entitlement can’t handle it.
This is bizarre from a technical standpoint. If B6 allows (pays for the product) type-A seat map display via Sabre, AA would have no blockage in accessing that. It sounds like AA will be purposefully blocking the seat map display. This is just weird.
If this results in Jet Blue taking over Spirit, then how can that be a bad thing. The lesser of 2 evils!
Our current regime at work. Allowed by the last regime to create more competition, disallowed by the current regime to enhance profits of two companies. Corruption American style at it’s finest.
Nice to have AA and B6 compete again, and I have already seen prices drop on transcons.,
The airline industry had already been able to turn into the ugly oligopoly it is now and am very glad that this madness of removing one competitor was blocked.
Of course Gary purchased 7 million AA miles so he’s not impartial, and the breakup affects him personally in a negative way.
@Jake “Of course Gary purchased 7 million AA miles so he’s not impartial, and the breakup affects him personally in a negative way.”
I flew exactly one segment, over a year ago, as part of the AA-B6 partnership. This affects me basically not at all.
I am not sorry to see the NEA dissolve. Not a big B6 fan. And- one day- AA will have to do something with those slots.
@Chase – you may be thinking back to the days when AA actually owned SABRE. When owned by AA, SABRE then – as it does now – acted as repository of the data from its various airline customers. There are partitions built into the system to separate carrier date from what are actually erstwhile industry competitors that happen to use the same platform.
I hope jet blue starts flying non stop from dca to Tpa again ….I miss that flight