in 30 days American Airlines and JetBlue They will have to end the Northeast Alliance in the United States. This was issued by a decision of US Federal Judge Leo Sorokin in favor of the US Department of Justice, which resumed the project, which was launched in 2021 and authorized by the previous Trump administration.
The current Biden administration filed against the deal in 2021, arguing that the two companies raised prices and reduced options for air travelers to and from major cities in the Northeast, such as New York and Boston.
Therefore, the maxi agreement is closed for the time being Took off Feb 25, 2021 which provided for the launch of 33 new joint routes, as well as the application of the double flight code to about 80 Boston and New York JFK flights.
Stop merging with spirit
For JetBlue, this is the second refusal in just a few months, after the US Department of Justice (DoJ) blocked the merger last March. by spiritprocess from 3.8 billion Of the dollars that would have been generated by the fifth largest player in US skies (behind the three American sisters, Delta, United and Southwest Airlines).
At that time he was the Attorney General Merrick Garlanddismissed the process arguing that a merger “would eliminate competition between JetBlue and Spirit, eliminating Spirit’s unique and confusing role in the airline industry. This would also lead to rHigher fare and lower seats available seats, hurting millions of American consumers on hundreds of roads.
In fact, the Biden administration is fighting a real fight against further boosting air transportation in the states; Action that goes hand in hand with a series of positions the government is taking to protect travellers.
What’s Included in the American-JetBlue Deal
Under the agreement, America also introduced 18 new summer routes to Latin America and the Caribbean: three daily flights from New York to Colombia (Cali, Bogotá, and Medellín); trip to Santiago de Chile with a frequency of three calls per week; Roads from New York to Lucia Street and Turks & Caicos. The other 12 routes American launched were all domestic: among them were flights from Boston Logan to Jackson Hole and Wilmington, or connections between Key West and Myrtle Beach from New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
At the same time, JetBlue has launched 15 new routeswhich included landing the company at the “two major airports” in New York JFK and Washington, among which were the island of Antigua, Cartagena in Colombia, Port-au-Prince in Haiti.
As part of the agreement approval process byAntitrust in the United StatesFurthermore, the airlines have agreed to award seven pairs of slots to JFK and six to Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington.
American rule
The strategic alliance will not affect the shareholder base, and JetBlue has not joined One world Or the transatlantic joint venture between American Airlines and IAG. Instead, the carrier continued to develop its expansion plans by independently launching transatlantic connections to London, Paris and Amsterdam.
“It is very clear to the Court that the primary motive for forming the alliance between American and JetBlue was to strengthen both Competitive centers against Delta (and to a lesser extent United) in Boston and New York – Sorokin repeated in his sentence – both companies are powerful and influential players in air transportation: the American Airlines group is the largest airline in the world and JetBlue is the sixth largest airline in the world. The United States, which has significant market power in the Northeast, in particular.
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