American Airlines Group and JetBlue Airways will escape federal monitoring and a ban on future partnerships as they wind down a commercial operating alliance a judge had previously said violated antitrust laws. US District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston rejected the US Justice Department’s request for a third-party to monitor the carriers as they dismantle their Northeast Alliance. The court can’t “implement ‘harsh measures when less severe ones will do,’” the judge wrote in an order Wednesday. Sorokin asked the DOJ and airlines to submit a revised version of the injunction by Friday. The injunction signals an end to the Northeast Alliance, which American and JetBlue created to compete more effectively in the New York City and Boston areas with Delta and United Airlines. American has said it plans to appeal Sorokin’s ruling that the partnership violated US antitrust laws, though JetBlue said in July that it will end its fight for the partnership to focus on a legal challenge to its proposed merger with Spirit Airlines Inc.<br/>
oneworld
British Airways serves KFC to passengers after in-flight meal malfunction Passengers on a British Airways (BA) flight were served fast food from Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) following problems with the airline’s usual in-flight meal service. Footage showed cabin crew handing out fried chicken to passengers on the flight on Sunday. It had earlier set off from Turks and Caicos, before stopping in Nassau, in The Bahamas, on its way to London. The crew bought several buckets of the fast food in Nassau after discovering that the plane’s catering carts were not properly chilled, which meant the airline’s normal in-flight meals could not be served. Passengers in both the economy and business cabins were given chicken legs with around eight hours and twenty minutes of the flight remaining. The flight was also an hour late following the stopover. A BA spokesman said: “Our teams sprung into action and made sure our customers had something to eat. We apologise to customers that their full meal service was not available and we had to wing it on this occasion. We’re sorry if we ruffled any feathers.”<br/>