Today, 7/16/2020, American Airlines and JetBlue announced that they are entering a strategic partnership.
AA’s official announcement: link
Contents [Hide]
Reasons and strategic goals
JetBlue is a New York local airline based at JFK in New York. In its earlier years, it acquired Airtrain. Its main routes are flights within the Eastern U.S., transcontinental East Coast-West Coast routes, and routes from the U.S. to the Caribbean.
- AA mainly wants to use B6’s network to strengthen its route options and competitiveness in these economically strong or tourism-heavy regions.
- JetBlue mainly wants to leverage AA’s much stronger domestic U.S. and international route network.
- And, of course, both want to make it through the aviation industry’s winter.
As strategic partners, the most important points are the following:
- Codesharing
- Opening bookings for each other’s flights
- Leveraging each other’s strengths
- If they receive an exemption from the FTC, they can coordinate flight schedules
AA moved quickly and has already rolled out a long-planned proposal. It is preparing to use B6’s home base at JFK to add 3 international routes:
JFK-TLV New York-Tel Aviv, JFK-ATH New York-Athens, JFK-GIG New York-Rio de Janeiro (seasonal service)
How this differs from the AA-AS partnership
AA-B6 made it clear that B6 will not join Oneworld, nor will it get involved in AA’s relationship with IAG.
AS, on the other hand, was aiming to join Oneworld.
Looking ahead
In the future, we should see more and more connecting flights between the two airlines to different destinations.
Hopefully there will eventually be good news on mileage award redemptions. So far, no related information has been announced. It is interesting to wonder how B6’s fully fare-linked redemption model would connect with AA award tickets.
These two airlines already offer some of the best domestic U.S. and Caribbean business class and first class products. A partnership between Mint and Flagship should create some very attractive connecting routes.