Is A United Airlines-JetBlue Merger Really Dead?

I want to state at the outset that I have no insider information beyond the words of Scott Kirby, the CEO of United Airlines, but those words are quite telling. Is he teasing us or hinting at something more?

United Airlines CEO Teases JetBlue Merger, Right?

Speaking at the annual J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference on March 11, 2025, Scott Kriby was asked, “Excluding Spirit and Frontier, will we see or do we need more industry consolidation? And does United play a role in it?”

Kirby responded:

I don’t know…I probably think it’s less likely than others think. JetBlue is the obvious candidate. Joanna [Geraghty, the CEO of JetBlue] is going to be here later today. So you can ask her what she thinks…there’s a lot of challenges, like I look at it from United’s perspective. We have a great plan that is working and mergers are so hard. They’re disruptive…I would like to have a bigger presence on the other side of the river at JFK. But man, all the headache, all the brain damage of buying a whole airline to get that, that’s a lot to do.

So, yes, really, I think the ball is going to be in JetBlue’s court. They’re also an airline that focuses on brand loyalty. So from the customer perspective, they have a lot of those sort of core DNA things…it’s sort of their decision on how to sort through that.

United recently took the unusual step of publicly denying any merger talks with JetBlue after this tweet from aviation insider JonNYC:

I have sources telling me UA is heavily looking at B6 — merger or buying assets or something else I’m not remotely sure at the moment.

— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) January 29, 2025

But listening to Kirby, it sounds to me, at the very least, like he is very open to a merger with JetBlue…something I first floated in 2017. A combined United-JetBlue would add two additional United hubs in JFK and BOS and with United’s focus on the passenger experience, the product and brand overall would align better than a merger with Spirit…or American.

I don’t read too much into this, but Kirby’s remarks are very telling and at the very least show that United is open to a merger with JetBlue, although it appears almost grudingly.

We’ve asked United Airlines for comments on Kirby’s remarks.