JetBlue Airways (B6, New York JFK) is in discussions with 'multiple airlines' regarding a potential new partnership, the company’s president, Martin St. George, revealed during a Barclays industrial conference.
“If we find a deal that’s accretive, we’ll absolutely do it,” he stated. He explained that after a federal judge ruled against JetBlue and American Airlines’ Northeast Alliance (NEA) in 2023, he effectively outlined a roadmap for what a future partnership could look like.
St. George added that the company had allocated an undisclosed sum within its ‘JetForward’ plan to support partnerships, as it believes new alliances will be advantageous.
He said that the biggest benefit of a new partnership would be on the loyalty front, in improving the utility of its TrueBlue loyalty scheme. “We're very happy with where TrueBlue revenues have been [...]. But we think that there's a lot of upside, given that we really don't have full global earn and burn. I think to be able to add that to our network would be very very helpful,” he said.
ch-aviation has reached out to JetBlue Airways for comment, but it was not immediately available.
From an operational standpoint, JetBlue’s greatest challenge at present is the recall of its Pratt & Whitney GTF engines. In 2024, the airline had 11 aircraft grounded, and the situation remains highly fluid in 2025, the company president explained.
In terms of capacity growth, JetBlue expects to remain flat this year, while the next “is a bit of a toss-up, because we really don’t know what is going to happen with Pratt [engines],” St. George said. “The next few years are going to be lumpy because of the GTF issue.”
The airline’s chief financial officer, Ursula Hurley, commented that the engine recall will reach its peak within the next one or two years. However, the company hopes to mitigate this issue with the arrival of new aircraft, enabling JetBlue to resume growth.
The ch-aviation fleets module shows JetBlue’s fleet comprises 312 aircraft - forty-four A220-300s, 130 A320-200s, sixty-three A321-200s, twenty-six A321-200NX, eleven A321-200NX(LR)s, and thirty-eight E190s. It has orders for 104 additional aircraft of which it expects 24 in 2025 and 17 in 2026.
