Jetblue angling to get with Oneworld?
Jetblue (B6) and Japan Airlines (JL) reached a codeshare agreement for 21 US destinations from B6’s stronghold cities of New York and Boston. JAL had direct flights from both cities to Tokyo. The codeshare strengthens the interline agreement that they had established in February.
It is interesting to note that none of the 21 destinations are currently served directly by JAL’s Oneworld partner American Airlines (AA). That is not surprising given the strong ties B6 has with AA. Last November, AA announced the ability to each AA miles on select B6 routes and vice versa.
Unfortunately, you cannot yet redeem AA miles on B6 at the moment. Am I being absurdly optimistic in guessing that reciprocal miles redemption ability may be coming soon?
Subscribe to get updates via email. Subscribe to get updates via RSS.
We also post updates on Twitter and Facebook on Airline Miles, the Airline Industry and other travel related stuff.
No, JetBlue is not trying to get in on oneworld. Yes, they have added codeshares with JL. They’ve also added with EK and they’re apparently working on others. This is all about growing their marketing and partner base, not getting in on an alliance. Joining oneworld wouldn’t be nearly as useful for them right now.
open architecture = codeshare whore
I dont see the benefits of an alliance when you could have this arrangement. As for the 21 destinations not being AA, I see that as a sign of JL and AA’s partnership, not b6. B6 is using AA for all the money they can steal and compete on a variety of routes from JFK, BOS and soon entering DFW.
Alaska does the same thing… while I’d love to see B6 in Oneworld, I agree with the above that there isn’t an incentive for them to join. Codeshares do everything they need. What this really says is that Japan-based flyers are also wanting to ticket straight-through to these destinations.
@ Seth you are right, joining OW wouldn’t be a prudent decision for JetBlue. But their AS’ish codesharing behavior is pretty interesting as Noah stated.
@ Mike I don’t really care about B6 joining OW. But ability to redeem AA miles on B6 would be neat.