American Airlines, JetBlue To Discontinue Interline Traffic Agreement - Update

(RTTNews) - American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL) Monday said the company and JetBlue Airways (JBLU) plan to terminate their interline traffic agreement and reciprocal frequent flyer program accrual agreement.

The agreement includes select routes from Boston Logan International Airport and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

On March 31, 2010, American and JetBlue announced an agreement for commercial collaboration in New York and Boston. The agreement was to provide customers with interline service in non-overlapping markets, which offered them more choices and convenient connections.

The agreement provided connections for more passengers at JFK and Boston to American's international destinations in Europe, Asia, and South America.

It also was to generate more traffic and support for American's planned joint business with oneworld partners British Airways and Iberia between North America and Europe, and with Japan Airlines between North America and Asia.

American said today that beginning March 10, each airline would no longer accept new interline sales for travel on the other carrier.

Effective April 1, customers will no longer earn miles or points when traveling on eligible routes operated by the other airline.

All American AAdvantage miles or JetBlue TrueBlue points already accrued through this partnership are not affected and those will be credited to customers' accounts.

The airlines said they are working together to ensure these changes have little impact to customers.

AAL closed down 0.5 percent at $39.02 on Friday. JBLU settled up 0.3 percent at $9.03.