(CTN News) – American Airlines (AAL.O) and JetBlue Airways (JBLU.O) said on Friday that they would begin winding down their Northeast Alliance on July 21 after a U.S. judge ordered them to end the partnership in May.
It was announced last week that JetBlue was terminating its three-year alliance with Delta, which allowed the two carriers to coordinate flights and pool revenue together.
The American Airlines and JetBlue airlines have announced that as of July 21, they will no longer be able to book new codeshare bookings on the other airlines beginning with their customers.
It has been confirmed that JetBlue will not appeal the ruling, but American Airlines says it still intends to challenge U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin’s decision in which he concluded that the partnership “substantially” diminished the level of competition within the domestic airline market as a whole.
In terms of fleet size, American Airlines is the largest U.S. airline by a wide margin, while JetBlue is the sixth largest airline.
As a result of this dissolution, American Airlines is facing a setback to its strategy of growing revenue by relying on its alliance partners more heavily for transferring passengers in uncompetitive markets.
It was through the Northeast Alliance that American Airlines was able to compete in the New York market, where it had previously been losing money.
This allowed American to move away from unprofitable routes while maintaining a presence in New York and allowing the company to feed traffic to its global partners while moving away from unprofitable routes.
It is JetBlue’s argument that terminating its alliance with American will render moot the U.S. In response to the Justice Department’s objections, Spirit Airlines (SAVE.N) filed a lawsuit against it to block its merger deal with Spirit Airlines (SAVE.N), the largest merger in the U.S. airline industry since American and US Airways merged in 2013.
In October, there will be a trial on the department’s lawsuit which aims to block the deal.
As a result, the airlines are striving to minimize disruptions to their customers. For customers who have already booked their travel, frequent flyer numbers will need to be added to the booking before July 21.
There is no limit to the amount of frequent flyer credit a customer can earn for all tickets purchased before July 21, so long as the account number is added before that date, the airline said.
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