TWO major American airlines have scored a huge win and passengers will be feeling the benefits in just weeks.
Despite rival company Spirit Airlines urging the government to prevent the deal, JetBlue and United will soon be rolling out their major partnership.
Very soon, JetBlue and United passengers will be entering into a new partnership named: “Blue Sky”.
Unveiled in May, the agreement will enable passengers to book flights on either airline on both of their websites.
Meanwhile, they’ll earn points on the brands’ frequent flyer programmes.
JetBlue will also be providing their new partner with slots at the congested JFK International Airport in New York for seven daily round-trip flights.
That aspect of the deal will launch in 2027.
Overall, JetBlue says the deals will generate $50 million more in incremental operating profit than it had originally planned.
Marty St George, the company’s president, said: “We believe Blue Sky will enable each airline to offer its customers access to hundreds of new flights and destinations through a traditional interline agreement.”
However, Spirit Airlines had previously urged the U.S Department of Transportation to reject the collaboration between its two rivals.
Spirit said that the deal would be anticompetitive and would encourage other large carriers to do similar deals.
According to Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer at Running Point Capital, the removal of antirust triggers – which collapsed JetBlue’s Northeast alliance – created a model which smaller carries will be able to copy.
Some of the triggers removed were shared revenue and joint scheduling.
The news comes after Spirit Airlines was forced to make a major change to its operations.
Nearly 270 pilots will be furloughed this fall, in the company’s third cull this year.
That means that nearly a million seats will be cut from its flight scheduling.
That’s a 24 per cent decrease in its seating capacity from last year.
The company previously told Forbes that the cuts were “necessary steps to ensure we operate as efficiently as possible as part of our efforts to return to profitability”.
The airline added that the furloughs will “better align staffing with our flight schedule”.
The company has not turned a profit for almost six years – last doing so in 2019.
It filed for Chapter 11 in November 2024, becoming the first airline to do so since American Airlines in 2013.
