That was a non answer from Joanna. It wasn't a no, it was a not right now. She's right that there's costs and complexities associated with joining an alliance. It takes significant investment in aligning reservation and other IT systems with the alliance, marketing, training staff, etc. Jetblue would also need a product that's desirable for an alliance to acquire. An airline with operational reliability issues, no lounges or domestic first class available fleetwide for customers with reciprocal elite status to utilize isn't an attractive proposition for a global alliance to add to their portfolio. Heck, lack of a well defined brand and network are causes for concern too.

Of those shortcomings, Jetblue is fixing the first, adding the second, and rumored to add the third sometime soon, and you can't go a week without hearing the words east coast leisure and vfr. If Jetblue remains independent, the odds are pretty high it will join a global alliance once all of those initiatives have hit full stride.