BOSTON (Legal Newsline) - JetBlue and American Airlines want to put a competitor on the stand to prove their business arrangement has not hurt customers in the Northeast United States.
The airlines on Sept. 13 filed a motion to compel the attendance of Delta executives at the upcoming trial that will have the United States and six states trying to prove JetBlue and American's so-called "Northeast Alliance" violates antitrust laws.
The agreement has American and JetBlue sharing revenue and coordinating flights into and out of four major airports – Boston Logan, John F. Kennedy International, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty International.
"Delta has not been silent about the NEA, not internally anyway," the motion says.
"As evidenced through the over-eight-thousand documents that Delta produced during this litigation, Delta has conducted multiple detailed assessments of the NEA’s impact on competition in the airline industry, and it has frequently brainstormed strategies to respond to the NEA..."
Internal documents show Delta disagrees with the federal government's stance on the NEA, the motion says. While the feds think legacy airlines like Delta benefit from the NEA because it weakens competition by JetBlue, Delta has actually been forced to rise to the level of competition created by it, the motion says.
"Importantly, this evidence is unique to Delta - no party witness can provide insights ito Delta's experiences and plans in the Northeast or its competitive response to the NEA," the motion says.
The companies briefed both the Department of Justice and the Department of Transportation before announcing the alliance in July 2020. After a six-month investigation, the DOT gave the pact its blessing as long as it increased options for consumers.
The six states that joined the DOJ as plaintiffs are Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Virginia and Pennsylvania. They allege the alliance will eliminate significant competition between American and JetBlue that has led to lower fares and higher quality service for consumers traveling to and from those airports. It will also closely tie JetBlue’s fate to that of American, diminishing JetBlue’s incentives to compete with American in markets across the country, the suit claims.
They want a ruling that says the NEA violates the Sherman Act. That can’t happen, the companies say, because the plaintiffs fail to allege any harm and fail to allege that revenue sharing is anticompetitive.
September has seen a wave of filings in the case, including a motion to exclude the feds' expert testimony.