JetBlue’s partnership dreams, an unfortunate 8 hour flight to nowhere, and a “new” Native American mound in Ohio (Saturday Selection)

We’ve got a few little noteworthy things for you from this week with some discussion about JetBlue’s partnership dreams, an unfortunate 8 hour flight to nowhere, and a “new” Native American mound in Ohio.

JetBlue Loved Its American Airlines Partnership—Now Its CEO Is Pushing To Build Something Like It Again

In 2020, American Airlines and JetBlue announced a partnership they called the “Northeast Alliance”. As I understand it, this partnership would have them sharing routes in and out of New York City and Boston, giving them both some oomph to compete with Delta and United in those cities. But in 2023 it was determined that this particular partnership violated antitrust law​. While American Airlines recently appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court, JetBlue management has made various comments to tell us they’ve still got partnership goals on their mind. JetBlue’s president for example said:

“We’re having conversations with a number of carriers right now to discuss the potential for future partnership. The judge in Massachusetts obviously laid out a framework that would be acceptable under at least the prior administration.”

Passengers spent 8 hours on a transatlantic flight that turned around about 300 miles from North America

In this week’s “wow…that would suck” segment, some Virgin Atlantic passengers spent 8 hours going nowhere as their London to New York City flight turned around and headed back to Europe 4 hours into the flight. They’d made it within 330 miles off the Canadian coast…but a technical issue turned them around. According to this article the aircraft “might have had a problem with its hydraulics.” Why turn all the way around to land a malfunctioning plane in one airport over another? Apparently the plane repair (and passenger rerouting) can be easier from a hub airport, so the plane returned to Manchester, Virgin Atlantic’s secondary hub. (It’s unknown why they didn’t return to London.)

These 2,000-Year-Old Mounds Trace the Path of the Moon

In this week’s “hey, that’s kind of local for me” segment, let’s talk about a 2,000 year old Native American Mound in my home state! Ohio actually has literally thousands of these mysterious ancient mounds, some which aren’t touristed at all simply sitting amongst the farmlands. If you’re unfamiliar, these mounds are mysterious in their purpose, but obvious in their human construction. The Serpent Mound which is also in Ohio is perhaps the most obvious and famous one, looking like an undulating snake. The mound highlighted by this article seems to have a celestial purpose, pointing to the position of the Moon at the peak of its 18.6-year cycle in a phase called the major lunar standstill. This article tells a longer story of this mound, including the hundred years it spent as a golf course before the Ohio History Connection turned it into a public landmark January 1st of this year. I guess that makes it a new landmark, even if it’s an ancient structure.

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