United Denies JetBlue Merger Rumors

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.