LCCs reach out and link up across the Atlantic

ATW is reporting that JetBlue has all intentions to tie-up with Irish Aer Lingus, initially an Internet tie-up making their respective networks available to site visitors. This confirms Neeleman's statement on January 30th that JetBlue anticipated entering into interline or codeshare agreements with one or more international carriers. Aer Lingus, on the other hand, is set to depart the oneworld alliance later this year, although it has stated its intentions to continue codeshare agreements with its previous partners.

This would not be the first agreement among LCCs. Danish Sterling and SkyEurope have had a codeshare agreement for a number of years, as well as Southwest's collaboration with ATA, or Frontier and AirTran's marketing agreement.

Network coordination and related costs have to be closely studied as it is these factors that may have inhibited previous attempts at relationships. One can only question what this deal would look like if Ryanair had been successful in its bid attempt for Aer Lingus.

Aer Lingus transported 25 000 pax between Ireland and JFK and 15 000 between Ireland and BOS. These figures will hopefully benefit from JetBlue's network.