Airlines Will Watch Closely the Biden-Era Scrutiny of the American-JetBlue Partnership
Photo Credit: The Justice Department is reviewing a controversial new partnership between American Airlines and JetBlue Airways for antitrust concerns. If the deal is off, what does it mean for an airline industry battered by the pandemic? Skift / Joanna Gonzalez (designer
Skift Take
The Justice Department is reviewing the controversial new partnership between American Airlines and JetBlue Airways for antitrust concerns. If the deal is off, what does it mean for an airline industry battered by the pandemic?
A little more than a decade ago, a Big Bang of mergers winnowed the U.S. airline industry down from more than a dozen major airlines to just four. Delta acquired Northwest; United acquired Continental; American merged with US Airways; and Southwest took over AirTran. A few years after this, a fifth large carrier was born when Alaska bought Virgin America in 2016 (after both American and JetBlue were said to be interested in Richard Branson's U.S. airline).
Interestingly enough, both of those airlines found themselves in headlines on Wednesday about antitrust scrutiny.
But before we go there, it's important to note that by the end of the Obama administration, regulators and many in the industry said enough was enough.
Consolidation had gone too far, reducing customer choice, raising fares, and cutting off access to many of the smaller cities airlines used to serve. But airlines argued, accurately, that the chronically money-losing industry had turned around, generating years of
