US court breaks up JetBlue-American partnership

A US district court judge has ruled in favour of the government’s 2021 lawsuit against the American Airlines’ and JetBlue’s 2020 “Northeast Alliance” (NEA). Leo Sorokin’s judgement in favour of the Department of Justice and the Biden administration, which called the alliance a “de facto merger”, gives the two carriers 30 days to go their separate ways. “It is abundantly clear to the Court that the defendants’ primary motivation in establishing the NEA was to strengthen their own competitive positions against Delta (and, to a lesser extent, United) in Boston and New York,” Sorokin wrote, citing American’s status as the