A lot of our really junior pilots were able to upgrade to the 190 due to this NEA flying, so this isn’t some big victory for JetBlue and the pilot group like some are making it out to be. NEA just failed….what if the Spirit transaction fails….where does that leave us?

They just got out of the NEA for free. Zero penalties have to be paid to AA now. The NEA was a necessity of Covid but it no longer serves JB well. It super concentrated our network into already stressed airports and destroyed our route structure.

I think it also only enhances our argument for the merger.

It’s all part of the political process; allow the headline of a “win” for the DOJ, followed by the future approval of JetBlue/Spirit merger with concessions so the Biden administration looks good.

Agree. I don’t think for a second Robin and Co felt the NEA would last in a post NK merger. It only strengthens their case for the NK merger, and that’s the big fish they really want to land.

That airplane is on its way out anyway regardless of todays decision. Plus they’ll be replaced by a higher paying airplane. Sure, there might be some temporary pain but it was always going to be that way.

Couldn’t agree more. This was a shortsighted COVID strategy that turned us into Eagle. I remember asking Scott Lawrence who was the architect of this thing at one of those Pilot happy hours at Sonny’s why this was good for us, and why wouldn’t it be better to just grow all that flying ourselves or better yet buy Frontier or Spirit. Couldn’t give me a good answer other than COVID. We all knew COVID would go away and we’d be stuck as AA’s regional.

Meanwhile he’s now at AA.

BTW, not a mention of this on the AA forum which shows how much they care about it. I guess they did just get an AIP today.

$184 million of JetBlue’s market cap just evaporated.
I would say the investment community believes this is not a trivial situation.

Article from BOS TV Station
 

https://www.wcvb.com/article/jetblue...iance/43945604

JetBlue says it's "Studying the judgement" and "evaluating our next steps".

JBLU stock didn’t really move any more or less than any other airline stock.

Correct me if I’m wrong but didn't B6 gain gate space at places like LGA and EWR via the NEA? Seems like much of the growth at LGA was totally based on the NEA and gates provided by AA. I agree, no way management thought this would survive the merger process but it seems like unwinding the NEA could be painful if not unprofitable.