United Airlines has a new friend in Queens.
The airline plans to return to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport again, this time through a new partnership with JetBlue Airways.
The partnership, called Blue Sky, will allow the airlines to sell seats on each other’s sites and let JetBlue customers earn frequent flyer miles on United and vice versa. It also includes reciprocal loyalty benefits like priority boarding and roomier seats for travelers with elite status. The deal is subject to regulatory review, the airlines said.
Some aspects of the partnership, which the carriers announced Thursday, will begin as early as the fall, though the airlines didn’t provide exact timing. They also did not provide financial details of the deal.
JetBlue’s leaders have long said they need a partnership to better compete against larger airlines like United and their shared rival Delta Air Lines, the most profitable U.S. carrier.
United CEO Scott Kirby told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday that in addition to the JFK access, the airlines together will have the largest presence in Boston and that United will be able to extend its reach in Florida and the Caribbean, where JetBlue has a robust network. In turn, JetBlue loyalists will get access to United’s globe-spanning destinations.
“It makes each airline more competitive,” Kirby said.
The new partnership stops short of the flight coordination that JetBlue had in its former alliance in the Northeast with American Airlines, which was struck down by a federal court on antitrust grounds two years ago. Last year, a judge blocked JetBlue’s plan to buy struggling budget carrier Spirit.
“This collaboration with United is a bold step forward for the industry — one that brings together two
customer-focused airlines to deliver more choices for travelers and value across our networks,” JetBlue CEO Joanna Geraghty said in a news release.
United left JFK in 2015, and Kirby has called that a mistake because moving transcontinental flights to Newark, New Jersey, allowed American to win over some corporate clients. It briefly returned in 2021, thanks to a Covid-era lull in traffic at the airport, where capacity is normally tightly controlled by the Federal Aviation Administration.
United left JFK again in 2022 because it wasn’t able to secure longer-term slots there.
Kirby has repeatedly said he wants the airline to return to JFK. The carrier has struggled in recent weeks with air traffic staffing shortages and congestion at its Newark hub.
Under the new agreement, United will be able to fly up to seven daily round-trip flights at congested Kennedy Airport, giving it more breadth in the New York City area, though the new operation will still be dwarfed by United’s main hub in the area at Newark Liberty International Airport.
United’s JFK flights will begin in 2027 at the earliest, the carriers said. JetBlue, meanwhile, will get eight flights at Newark. United didn’t say which routes it plans to operate at JFK, though its last foray was for service to Los Angeles and San Francisco.
They airlines called the swap a “net neutral exchange.”
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