American-JetBlue Alliance Is Blocked as Anticompetitive (4)

American Airlines Group Inc. and JetBlue Airways Corp. must dissolve a partnership covering flights across the northeastern US, after a federal judge agreed with antitrust enforcers that the alliance would reduce competition and boost fares for consumers.

The Northeast Alliance, “operating as it was designed and intended by American and JetBlue, substantially diminishes competition in the domestic market for air travel,” US District Judge Leo Sorokinsaid in a ruling Friday. The agreement has replaced “full-throated competition with broad cooperation,” he said, thereby hurting customers.

Read the ruling here

The decision, which follows a monthlong trial that ended in November, ...