American Airlines and JetBlue expand Northeast Alliance by adding new destinations from New York and Boston, tripling flights at LaGuardia compared to 2019, and codesharing on 40 additional routes.
On Wednesday (April 21, 2021), American Airlines and JetBlue announced an expansion of their Northeast Alliance with new destinations from Boston (BOS) and New York (JFK), a tripling of flights from LaGuardia (LGA) and codesharing on 40 additional routes. American announced new service between Boston (BOS) and Cincinnati (CVG), St. Louis (STL) and Toronto (YYZ), providing additional connectivity for customers in the Northeast. The carrier will also operate all flights to Los Angeles on their signature Airbus A321T starting November 2, 2021. The aircraft features Flagship First and Flagship Business lie-flat seats and an elevated onboard experience, complementing JetBlue’s premium Mint product.
Under the Northeast Alliance, American and JetBlue will serve 46 out of the 50 top markets from Boston. The alliance also enables new service by both airlines from New York’s LaGuardia Airport (LGA). Combined, American and JetBlue will offer more flights between New York and Florida than any other carrier.
In Wednesday’s announcement, American Airlines’ Chief Revenue Officer, Vasu Raja, said,
“Our global partnerships are designed to grow our network to benefit our customers, team members, and investors. Since the inception of our partnership with JetBlue, we have committed to offering customers more flights, more destinations and a better experience when traveling. We’re proud to deliver on those promises for our customers, not just in the Northeast, but throughout the entire American Airlines network, who now have greater access to the world.”
American and JetBlue launched their first codeshare flights last February, which continues to grow with 40 more flights available on either airline’s website starting May 3, 2021. JetBlue will place their ‘B6’ code on 24 more American flights, while American will place their ‘AA’ code on 15 JetBlue flights.
Northeast travelers will also enjoy more international flights, as American Airlines is launching long-haul service between New York (JFK) and Tel Aviv (TLV) and Athens (ATH) from May 6th and June 3rd, respectively. The carrier is also expanding service to India with the launch of nonstop Boeing 777-200 service between New York (JFK) and New Delhi (DEL) starting October 31, 2021. The new route complements American’s partnership with Qatar Airways offering new service between Seattle (SEA) and Bengaluru. American Airlines and its partners will now offer more connectivity between the U.S. and India than any other airline partnership.
In a separate announcement on Wednesday, JetBlue’s Head of Revenue and Planning, Scott Laurence, said,
“With the Northeast Alliance, we are finally able to give our customers in New York and Boston what they’ve been asking for years – more JetBlue service and more JetBlue low fares. By connecting with American’s large customer base and international network, we can add new markets that we have been eying for many years. The alliance quite literally gives us room to grow as we get greater access to airports that we’ve been locked out of for years.”
JetBlue plans on adding seven new destinations to their route network later this year and in 2022 advancing their Boston and New York focus city strategy. The carrier will offer more flights to and from the Midwest, southern U.S. and Central America, as well as new service to Canada and Honduras.
Source(s): American Airlines, JetBlue