If I didn’t know better, I would have thought yesterday was April Fools’ Day. Why? Because American and JetBlue announced that they had signed a limited partnership to feed traffic to each other in New York and Boston. Oh yeah, and they’re doing a little slot swap. What the f*&k?!? I had to ask JetBlue about this.

American is the airline that dumped 757s into Long Beach when JetBlue started flying. This is also the airline that is known for doing everything it can to slay upstarts. Yet now, here they are skipping down 5th Avenue together. If the graphic above doesn’t make the entire thing clear for you, you can read about my take on this as part of American’s efforts to fight Delta in New York over on BNET today, but I want to focus on JetBlue here.

There are a couple of things happening. First, JetBlue and American signed an interline agreement, which means you’ll be able to book tickets via American or travel agents to travel on JetBlue from 18 domestic cities to either JFK or Boston where you’ll be able to transfer on American to one of 12 international destinations all on the same ticket. This isn’t a codeshare and it isn’t a frequent flier partnership, yet.

Second, JetBlue will give up 12 slot pairs at JFK in order to get 8 slot pairs at Washington/National and 1 at White Plains. Yeehaw. All this, combined with the fact that Lufthansa, part of American’s rival Star Alliance, owns a good chunk of JetBlue left my head spinning. So I turned to JetBlue and asked some question in a way that I wouldn’t ever dare trying with American.

Cranky: So this is just an interline agreement and it can only be booked via American right now? No bookings will occur via JetBlue? Isn’t that why you signed up for Sabre so you could do stuff like that?
JetBlue: Bookings can be made on AA.com, by calling American Airlines reservations, via Global Distribution Systems and Online Travel Agents or through a travel agent. JetBlue is currently unable to sell interline tickets seamlessly on our website. We intend to add interline functionality to our website later this year.

Cranky: Why have west coast cities been left out of the connections? In other words, why can’t I go from Long Beach? You know I love my home airport.
JetBlue: This is an agreement for non-overlapping markets served by JetBlue from JFK or Boston with well-timed schedules to connect to international destinations served by American. We will explore additional cities in the future, but these 18 domestic JetBlue and 12 international American cities are our launch cities.

Cranky: Is Lufthansa going to kill you? As a part owner, I assume this was discussed with them before the deal was implemented?
JetBlue: Lufthansa invested in JetBlue and we feel this agreement with AA will help us produce a valuable return on their investment.

Cranky: Does this have any impact on the 5 slots you’re trying to get at DCA from the US/DL deal or is this simply an additional part of your plan to make your move on DCA?
JetBlue: These slots are part of the agreement with American. They are separate from our plans to obtain slots through other means.

Cranky: If you’re giving up 12 slots at JFK, what flights will go away? Are those slots all during peak hours? Can you make sure the ones you give up are the ones that would otherwise have resulted in horrible 27 hour onboard aircraft delays?
JetBlue: The exact flights have not been determined. We are swapping valuable DCA slots for some of our extra JFK slots that were being underutilized. Even without these, we are still the #1 airline at JFK.

Cranky: When are you planning to start Washington/National service? Where are you flying from National? (I know you won’t answer this.)
JetBlue: We hope to begin flying to National in November. Precise start dates, routes and fares will be announced later this spring.

So there you have it. I think my questions were far more entertaining than the answers, but to be fair, the responses were typed on a BlackBerry. For what it’s worth, I also spoke with Lufthansa spokesperson Martin Riecken who said they did know about this before it was announced. I asked him if Lufthansa was unhappy about this. He said:

As a financial investor, anything that is good for JetBlue’s business is good for us. As a partner, this is just an interline agreement which is standard throughout the industry.

How very rational and, well, stereotypically German. That makes sense to me, but I imagine we’ll hear a different tune if this deal progresses any further.

For JetBlue, this seems to be a nice way to pick up a few extra international passengers, but it’s more about National than anything else. They’ll get 8 slots here and they still want those 5 if the US Airways/Delta slot swap goes through. They also said in their release today that they “petitioned the FAA for access to unused slot pairs in the early morning and late-evening hours.” Though they won’t tell me where they’re flying, my money is on Boston and Florida to start but possibly some JFK as well.

I think this is about as good of an example of strange bedfellows as I can remember. But it seems to make sense for both sides. If this does go any further, then it’s bound to cause some serious issues with Lufthansa. But maybe with its partner Continental in Newark, JetBlue isn’t as interesting to Lufthansa anymore. Hmmm.

Delta tries to land new JFK terminal – Crain’s New York Business
I talk to Crain’s about why Delta needs do something with its terminal at JFK.

Flying High: Southwest Airlines Posts Big February Gains – BNET
Southwest saw strong double digit revenue gains in February.

Flying Higher: United Airlines February Revenues Way Up – BNET
United beat Southwest’s numbers and showed that they’re really hitting their stride in the revenue game these days.

Fokker’s Back in the Airplane-Building Game – BNET
Those little Fokkers are looking to start building an updated version of the F70 and F100 planes that haven’t been built for more than a decade.

Massive Snow Means Less Airline Capacity in February – BNET
Feb traffic numbers are in, and what do they have in common? A lot fewer available seat miles.

Mexican’s Leading Low Fare Airline Now Owned by the Richest Man in the World – BNET
Carlos Slim is now the richest man, and he owns an airline, believe it or not.

For those who were hoping to see my CNN International piece on the looming BA strike, I’m sorry but it doesn’t seem to be online.

I highly doubt you needed another reason to avoid congested New York/JFK Airport, but here’s one for you just in case. Starting in March, JFK is shutting a runway down to be re-done. It’ll reopen (mostly) in July. I understand the need for this project, and the airlines and airport are preparing, but man, it’s gonna suck.

The runway being closed is 13R-31L. That’s the airport’s longest runway – almost 15,000 feet long – and you can see it in red at left. Why are they closing it? Well, the Port Authority finally realized that if they removed that curve in the runway, they could actually speed up traffic. Who knew? (File that one under “phun with photoshop”)

In reality, it just needs to be rebuilt. See, it was last re-done in 1993 and received some repairs in 2004. It’s beyond the expected life of an asphalt runway so they just can’t wait anymore.

This time, they’re going to do it right. They’re replacing the asphalt with longer-lasting concrete. They’re expanding it to be 200 feet wide instead of 150 feet, so it can handle the A380. They’re also going to fix up the taxiways around there to make them more efficient and to add more waiting room for airplanes (that’s not what you want to hear).

So it’s a good thing, but there’s one problem. It has to be done when airplanes want to use it. Of course, JFK never uses every runway at the same time, especially since three of them cross. But this particular runway is used very frequently, so it will mess things up.

What are the airlines doing about it? The good news is that they’ve agreed to keep flying their winter schedule until July 1 when they’ll ramp up to the busier summer flying. That should help. For example, last summer, JetBlue had 176-178 daily departures from JFK. This summer they’ll only have 162, but that won’t start until July. Until July, there will only be 153-154. Other airlines should have similar cuts.

This will also require some creative air traffic control work. They have other configurations that they use that don’t require runway 13R-31L, but the weather will determine if they can use those or not. The spring, fortunately, is a better weather time to do this than summer or winter, but it’s not perfect.

Airplanes like to take off and land into the wind. They need to be going a certain airspeed to get into the air, and when they fly into the wind, that means the groundspeed can be lower. Lower groundspeed means they need less runway. Hooray! Light tailwinds and moderate crosswinds are fine, but when they get worse than that, you have trouble.

Looking at this map, you can see that a strong Southeasterly wind would be the biggest problem here. If it gets strong enough, you would only be able to use the single 13L-31R. Uh oh. That shouldn’t happen too often, but when it does, run away screaming.

So, if you’re booking spring trips to New York, think about LaGuardia or Newark. (I never thought those would look like good options to avoid delays.) And if you’re looking at a trip connecting through JFK, think again. Avoid that place if you have a choice.

Why Comair’s On-Time Performance is More Concerning Than Atlantic Southeast’s – BNET
Comair and ASA both sat at the bottom of the July on-time performance derby, but the airlines appear to have two different problems.

Meaningless Mishandled Bag Numbers Plunge in July – BNET
Bag mishandlings are down, but the strange method of calculating the number makes these numbers pretty useless.

The Longest Delays Are In the Northeast – BNET
This is no surprise, but for those wanting a passenger bill of rights, I have a better idea.

Midwest Starts Milwaukee – St Louis on American’s Turf – BNET
Before American announced its St Louis pulldown, I wondered about this move. Now with hindsight, it makes sense.

Update: American Eliminates St Louis Hub – BNET
Just a quick update on my previous post.

American Raises $1.3 Billion in Cash – BNET
It wasn’t just route announcements that had American making news. They also raised a bunch of cash.

JetBlue travelers rejoice! The airline’s brand spanking new Terminal 5 opened yesterday. This means the cramped and awkward Terminal 6 is finally, mercifully empty.

If you’d like to learn more about the terminal, you can see my earlier post or you can check out JetBlue’s blog on the opening. You can also head over to JetBlue’s EXTREMELY detailed Flickr photostream. (I’m pretty sure I don’t need to see a sandwich that close-up.)

I snagged the following picture off their site. Looks like a beautiful day at JFK.