A federal choose Friday ordered American Airways and JetBlue Airways to finish their partnership within the Northeast, a win for the Division of Justice after it sued to undo the alliance arguing it was anti-competitive.

The lawsuit, filed in September 2021, alleged the airways’ alliance was successfully a merger that will harm customers by driving up fares. The trial started a yr later in Boston and wrapped up in December.  

“It makes the 2 airways companions, every having a considerable curiosity within the success of their joint and particular person efforts, as a substitute of vigorous, arms-length rivals repeatedly difficult one another within the market of competitors,” U.S. District Choose Leo Sorokin mentioned in his ruling.

Fort Price, Texas-based American Airways and New York-based JetBlue Airways argued they wanted the so-called Northeast Alliance to raised compete with different massive carriers Delta Air Strains and United Airways in congested airports within the area.

“No matter the advantages to American and JetBlue of turning into extra highly effective—within the northeast typically or of their shared rivalry with Delta—such advantages come up from a unadorned settlement to not compete with each other,” Sorokin wrote. “Such a pact is simply the kind of ‘unreasonable restraint on commerce’ the Sherman Act was designed to stop.”

He ordered the airways to finish the partnership 30 days after the ruling. The carriers are prone to problem the choice. A JetBlue spokeswoman mentioned the provider is finding out the choice and evaluating subsequent steps. 

“We’re disillusioned within the determination,” she mentioned. “We made it clear at trial that the Northeast Alliance has been an enormous win for patrons. By way of the NEA, JetBlue has been in a position to considerably develop in constrained northeast airports, bringing the airline’s low fares and nice service to extra routes than would have been attainable in any other case.”

American Airways did not instantly reply to a request for remark.

Undoing the partnership can be tough, particularly through the peak summer season journey season, which airways have already offered tickets for.

JetBlue and American are usually not allowed to coordinate fares beneath the partnership, which was authorized within the ultimate days of the Trump administration in 2021 and has since expanded.

JetBlue had beforehand warned in a securities submitting {that a} ruling in opposition to the NEA “may have an antagonistic influence on our enterprise, monetary situation, and outcomes of operations.

“Moreover, we’re incurring prices related to implementing operational and advertising and marketing components of the NEA, which might not be recoverable if we had been required to unwind all or a portion of the NEA,” the corporate mentioned.

The Justice Division did not instantly reply to a request for remark.

The division individually in March filed an antitrust lawsuit to dam JetBlue’s proposed acquisition of finances provider Spirit Airways, arguing the deal would drive up fares, “harming cost-conscious fliers most acutely.”

That mixture faces a excessive hurdle for approval by the Biden administration, which has vowed to take a tough line in opposition to what it views as anticompetitive offers.