American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth) has asked the Supreme Court of the United States to review and overturn a First Circuit decision to block its Northeast Alliance (NEA) joint venture with JetBlue Airways (B6, New York JFK).
The carrier argued that the lower court had wrongly condemned its partnership with JetBlue without marketwide evidence of harm to consumers. It requested the Supreme Court to clarify how joint ventures should be evaluated under the rule of reason in antitrust cases.
JetBlue was not immediately available for comment.
The alliance between the two companies was announced in July 2020 and approved by the US Department of Transportation (DOT) during the first Donald Trump administration in January 2021. It allowed American and JetBlue to collaborate on flight schedules, routes, and resources in the northeastern United States, particularly at New York JFK and Boston.
However, under president Joe Biden, the United States Department of Justice argued that the alliance would harm consumers by removing incentives for American to lower prices to attract customers from JetBlue, effectively making them partners instead of competitors.
In 2023, US District Judge Leo Sorokin ruled in favour of the DOJ, stating that the alliance violated antitrust law. Shortly afterwards, JetBlue terminated the alliance as it sought to improve its chances of gaining approval to purchase Spirit Airlines, a deal that was also blocked by the DOJ. Additionally, the ruling imposed a ten-year ban on both carriers from forming any similar alliance.
JetBlue is currently in discussion with 'multiple airlines' regarding a potential new partnership, the company's president Marty St George said at a conference last month. He said that the ruling against the NEA effectively outlined a roadmap for what a future partnership could look like.
