American Airlines has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and reverse a decision by a lower court invalidating an alliance with JetBlue on antitrust grounds.
In November 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit had upheld a lower court’s decision to nullify the airlines’ “Northeast Alliance” (NEA) – a joint venture between the carriers that allowed them to coordinate some routes and share revenue in Boston and New York.
American’s new 189-page petition asks the Supreme Court to review and reverse the appellate court’s decision, arguing that it misconstrued antitrust laws and threatens valuable collaborative ventures.
“The First Circuit’s decision affirming that injunction embraces the same hostility to collaboration and splits with other circuits in two fundamental respects,” the petition stated.
American said that the First Circuit held plaintiffs’ evidence of anticompetitive effects “based solely” on the fact that American and JetBlue coordinated their schedules to produce a broader network in the Northeast – resulting in the loss of some flight frequencies by American and JetBlue “on a small number of routes.”
The First Circuit called this evidence of “reduced output,” but American asserted this is merely an observation of American and JetBlue’s output in NEA markets – not marketwide output or output among all airlines in the relevant market.
“This was clear legal error,” American stated in its petition. “Intra-venture reductions in competition (and consequently in the joint venturers’ output) often occur in joint ventures precisely because such collaboration makes the joint venture work in the first place. Joint ventures typically present a tradeoff: while collaboration necessarily reduces to some degree the preexisting competition between the parties to the joint venture, the fact of collaboration holds the promise of improving products, increasing competitive pressure in the market as a whole, and ultimately leaving consumers better off.”
American further stated in the petition that the NEA was designed to enhance its competitive position against other major airlines like Delta and United without significantly harming competition.
“This Court’s intervention is needed to resolve these conflicts and ensure that the interests of consumers—not a hostility to collaboration among competitors—governs in Sherman Act cases,” American stated.
