Rumors circulated this week about possible merger or asset
purchase talks between United Airlines and low-cost carrier JetBlue after the
latter’s Tuesday earnings call in which CEO
Joanna Geraghty told an analyst about possibly reviving something like its Northeast
Alliance efforts, "[we’re] having conversations with a number of carriers
right now to discuss the potential for future partnership. The judge in
Massachusetts obviously laid out a framework that would be acceptable under at
least the prior administration. But there's nothing to announce now."
The comment set off industry speculation that United
Airlines, which announced Q4 revenue up 7.8 percent and full-year 2024
revenue up 6.2 percent year over year, was in the market for a Northeast
partner that would get its metal back into New York’s John F. Kennedy airport
after leaving the Northeast gateway airport in 2022 to consolidate traffic out
of Newark International, just a few miles away. As of August, JetBlue operated
31 percent of domestic traffic out of JFK, according to Cirium.
But the legacy carrier on Friday denied such rumors and
tried to shut down further speculation via a brief regulatory
filing.
“The company is not in negotiations or discussions with any
other airline regarding a merger, acquisition or similar strategic transaction
and has not been in any recent discussions with any airlines regarding the
same,” the airline stated in the documents.
Still as of Saturday, industry observers and analysts kept
the chatter
alive on X, with potential partnerships or tie-ups that might resuscitate a
JetBlue partnership or asset purchase with American Airlines, United or even
Alaska Airlines—and along with it JetBlue’s fragile financial situation, which
has not seen a profit since 2019.
The U.S. Department of Justice in 2023 scuttled JetBlue’s
Northeast Alliance with American Airlines, which the carriers announced in
2020 and were actively operating in 2021 when six states and the DOJ filed an
antitrust suit against the carriers. A judge ruled against the alliance, calling
it a “de facto merger” and ordering it dismantled. JetBlue in March 2024 abandoned
a planned merger with Spirit Airlines after a judge ruled against the carriers
in another DOJ antitrust suit.
After a leadership change in 2024 that saw Geraghty take the
reins last February, JetBlue in its latest earnings call hyped its “momentum”
as well as some tailwinds from increasing corporate travel revenues. However, the
airline reported a fourth-quarter 2024 net loss of $44 million, and a full-year
net loss of $795 million. The latter was more than twice the carrier’s $310
million full-year loss from 2023.