The Dallas Morning News ran THISstory on Wednesday about new cooperation between American Airlines and jetBlue.   In short, the two airlines will swap slots at JFK airport (AA to *gain* 12 slot pairs) and Washington Reagan National Airport (jetBlue to *gain* 8 slot pairs) and start cooperating (interline agreement) on flights where they do not compete. 

It will become possible for a passenger in Burlington, VT to fly jetBlue to JFK and then seemlessly transfer to American Airlines to fly to London Heathrow airport.  This is a good thing for both airlines.  AA gains the opportunity for more feed into its major trunk routes (not flown by jetBlue) and jetBlue gets feed for its more obscure routes not served by American or American Eagle.  These feeds will take place both at JFK and Boston’s Logan Airport in the Northeast and, most importantly, these “complete” flights are only available via American Airlines at the present.  jetBlue doesn’t have the capability to offer such things yet. 

Both airlines get to increase their potential strengths at airports where they want to compete harder and it’s a deal that is much more likely to happen with the FAA’s blessing than the Delta/US Airways deal currently under proposal.  The deal also likely works to keep an airline such as Southwest Airlines or Airtran marginalized at those three airports without appearing to suppress all LCC competition since the deal is with jetBlue after all.  This is smart.

However, it greatly disappoints me that jetBlue has taken this route.  It isn’t unprecedented since jetBlue is already cooperating with airlines such as Lufthansa (who owns 17.5% of jetBlue) and Aer Lingus but it is disappointing because it shows jetBlue willing to be a 2nd tier partner with a legacy instead of building upon its own successes.  Can you really see jetBlue adding flights from the NYC area to destinations in Texas or Chicago now?  That would be highly unlikely. 

It would appear that jetBlue has decided the status quo is good enough instead of challenging other airlines in new markets as was their mandate and focus when starting the airline.  It’s a safe play and even profitable in the short term but it limits their ability to compete and deliver new service in the long term.  Now it sounds as if their strategy is to be more like Alaska Airlines (friend to many, enemy of very few) and a lot less scrappy like Southwest, Airtran or Frontier/Midwest.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax