They made it pretty clear that the escalating number of JFK slots that the partnership provides over the next few years plus the fact that we have first right of refusal of any gate sales in JFK as well as permanent allocation of 20-24 slots if another airline buys Jetblue is the main reason that they are not interested in buying them. Don't remember if it was Quayle or not but they said at the CA upgrade class that "we got everything we wanted out of the partnership and there is no reason to buy JetBlue." Some of the stuff they said wasn't published with the release, but there are a lot more than just 7 temporary slots in JFK as part of the deal.

My guess is that the lawsuit that JetBlue ALPA filed against their company to force binding arbitration was when they realized that the scope of the "partnership" would be a significant enough asset transfer to United to deter a merger that they wanted to undo that. It was just filed in March 2026 in the Eastern NY District Court, which you can read all the filings if you have a PACER account.

Buying JB not is going to happen either way. They are in a bad place with almost $9B in debt (and growing) and it makes it a tough pill for anyone to swallow. Especially someone like Alaska that has already taken on debt for acquiring VX and then HA. Jetblue isn't a strategic acquisition for anyone because it doesn't add anything that the other airlines don't already now have, unless you need to add $9B in debt to your balance sheet because your Moody's rating is too darn high.

There are no mergers that are good for any pilot hired at United within the last 5 years. None. Its only Bad.

 

Very true!

Also - that's nearly half the pilot group now!