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American Airlines and JetBlue said on Friday that they should be allowed to continue selling tickets on each other’s flights in the Northeast and linking frequent flyer programs despite losing an antitrust trial because of their partnership.
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If airlines get their wish, the Justice Department said, travelers will forfeit the benefits of restoring airline competition.
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In separate filings, the airlines and the government told a federal judge in Boston how he should implement his ruling last month to break up the partnership. The American CEO said his company would appeal the ruling.
The Justice Department has proposed a final ruling that would order American and JetBlue to terminate most parts of the deal immediately. The government said airlines should respect existing tickets to avoid harm to travelers, but then quickly reduce their involvement at airport gates and take-off and landing slots at major airports.
The airlines want to continue selling tickets on each other’s flights – called codeshare – and offer mutual benefits to the frequent flyer because these practices are “common in the airline industry”. American and JetBlue also objected to the Justice Department’s request to bar them from any deals involving revenue sharing or coordinating routes with each other for 10 years, and with any other US airline for two years.
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The airlines call their partnership in New York and Boston the Northeast Alliance, or NEA.
The DOJ said that by asking them to keep elements of the deal, the airlines are trying to “quickly craft a new ‘NEA Lite’.”
The airlines launched their partnership after securing approval from the outgoing Trump administration in January 2021. They argued it helped them compete against Delta Air Lines and United Airlines in the Northeast.
The Biden administration sued the airlines in September 2021, arguing that their deal would reduce competition and raise prices for consumers. After a jury-less trial last fall, US District Judge Leo Sorokin ruled that the New Energy Agency (NEA) violated federal antitrust laws.
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This story has been updated to correct that the Trump administration approved the partnership in January 2021, not 2020.