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United Airlines and JetBlue Airways announced a unique partnership late last month. It’s not a codeshare, joint venture, or merger, but a collaboration called “Blue Sky” that is without shared pricing, branding, or coordinated schedules. The interline agreement part of this announcement means that passengers will be able to book flights on both airlines on one ticket. This partnership also includes reciprocal benefits between the two programs, mileage earning and redemption, as well as slots at New York John F Kennedy International Airport (JFK) for United to run up to seven daily roundtrip flights. This looks to boost business for United and could be somewhat of a lifeline for beleaguered JetBlue. Spirit is now crying foul and asking the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) to stop this partnership.
Spirit claims that this deal is anticompetitive and will lead other large carriers to pursue similar deals. It went on to demand an extension to the review period and requested that all details be made available for public review before being approved. This is not unheard of and when American and JetBlue formed the Northeast Alliance in 2021, United wanted the same thing that Spirit is asking for now.
I can see why Spirit is sour on this deal, but with how cozy United has gotten with the Trump Administration and its being more open to mergers and business partnerships makes me think that this will be approved. JetBlue wanted to acquire Spirit and this was rejected by the Biden administration. JetBlue was left on the hook to pay Spirit $69 million, which was the last thing the low-cost carrier needed given its recent financial performance.
JetBlue Airways announced in July 2022 that it wanted to acquire Spirit Airlines for $3.8 billion. Frontier Airlines was planning to merge with Spirit, but JetBlue outbid them and started on its path to combining the two low-cost carriers. JetBlue began divesting gates and ended its Northeast Alliance with American Airlines. The acquisition looked to be on track until the DOJ sued to shut it down and won.
Anthony’s Take: I can see why Spirit is objecting to this partnership, but I do not think it will matter. This deal seems to be structured in a way that skirts items that usually snag in government oversight like pricing and sharing of information.
(Image Credits: JetBlue, United, and Spirit.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
