More than three years after a US court forced American Airlines and JetBlue to unwind their Northeast Alliance, the fallout is still playing out in court — this time with passengers demanding their money back.
A class action, filed in 2022 and consolidated in the Eastern District of New York, argues that the two airlines coordinated schedules, split routes and shared revenue under the partnership, which reduced their incentive to compete on price. Passengers say that cost them money in the form of higher fares, and they're seeking the excess airfare back plus treble damages under US antitrust law.
The current class covers people who directly bought American or JetBlue tickets to or from Boston between 1 April 2021 and 28 July 2023. Earlier this month, both airlines opposed class certification and moved to exclude the plaintiffs' expert witness. Their argument, in essence: fares rose everywhere as travel rebounded from the pandemic — pilot and aircraft shortages, inflation — so the alliance can't be blamed for Boston prices. Delta was also growing in Boston, and American had exited the LaGuardia shuttle route, a business-travel market that was slow to recover anyway.
The plaintiffs do have one thing going for them: the government already won its antitrust case against the partnership, so a court has found the conduct illegal. What remains to be shown is that ticket prices were specifically higher because of it.
The case has plenty of irony. The alliance created a third serious competitor to Delta and United in New York, and as a condition of its approval it actually required the airlines to add seats — which, by increasing supply, may have pushed fares down overall. A narrower commercial agreement, like American's partnership with Alaska on the West Coast, would likely have been legal, and an outright merger would have avoided the antitrust problem entirely. The middle path is what got them sued.
For travellers, the practical takeaway is narrow but real: if you bought an American or JetBlue ticket to or from Boston in that 2021–2023 window and the class is certified, you could be in line for a refund without lifting a finger. Watch for case updates. Beyond that, it's a reminder that airline partnerships — alliances, codeshares, joint ventures — genuinely shape the fares you pay, and regulators are willing to break them up.
