Airline Fees Are Not ‘Junk Fees’ — That Term Poisons The Debate: The recent push to talk about “junk fees” risks that well-intentioned regulation will in fact raise consumer air fares and reduce transparency.

Commercial 50 And Fewer Seat Aircraft Are Economically Dead: Jets with 50 seats no longer are economically viable in the U.S. due to pilot wages, and the fast growth of low-cost carriers. The 70-seat jets aren’t far behind.

An Airline’s Product Is More Than Its Schedule, But It Starts There: Is an airline’s schedule its only product attribute? American Airlines thinks so. But for customers to repeat on an airline, more features are part of the product suite.

Why This Summer Should Be Smoother For U.S. Airlines: While summer 2022 was rough for airline operations and travelers, summer 2023 is likely to be better due to fewer domestic flights, better staffing and other factors.

Premium Leisure Won’t Replace All Lost Corporate Business Travelers: Airline business travel has not returned to 2019 levels. Some industry leaders have been touting the premium leisure traveler as a replacement. But it isn’t that easy.

Automated Aircraft Inspections Will Soon Be Commonplace For Airlines: Moving from manual to automated aircraft inspections has upsides for commercial aircraft. Smart drones with AI can create a digitation of the aircraft in minutes.

All-Business Class Airlines Tend To Fail Because They Can’t Compete: All-business class airlines often conflate a great onboard experience with a great product. But high-fare paying customers care about network scope, loyalty programs, and more.

Overbooking Airline Seats Helps Everyone When Done Correctly: Proper overbooking means more low fares are offered, and airlines have learned how to reduce or even eliminate involuntary denied boardings. Media often miss this.

Presley’s Place At Pittsburgh’s Airport Is A Model To Be Copied: Presley’s Place at Pittsburgh’s airport is a sensory-sensitive room that makes travel possible for some families. It is a model that other airports should copy.

Delivering Newspapers Taught Me What I Needed To Be An Airline CEO: Paper newspapers are largely a thing of the past.

When U.S. Pilots Vote To Strike, It Scares Customers But Little Else: Pilots at several U.S.airlines, including American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, have recently voted to strike.

Skytrax Gives Five-Star Rating To N.Y.’s LGA Airport Terminal B: New York’s LaGuardia airport is seeing billions of dollars of investment. The newly-built Terminal B just received a five-start rating, the first of any airport in the U.S.

How Hybrid Work Is Changing Airline Industry Seasonality: As more people work in hybrid office environments, airline demand patterns are changing. This has implications for how airlines plan and forecast. Overall, this is a positive trend for airlines and travel.

Reduced Airline Traffic Means DCA Airport May No Longer Need Slots: Slot controls at DCA airport exist to limit traffic at an airport so close to important national buildings. Yet, with fewer people flying to D.C., American is connecting at DCA to fill otherwise empty seats. By temporarily removing slots at DCA, things may improve with no increase in prices.

Expect Some U.S. Airlines To Announce Seat Configuration Changes In The Next Year: Airlines have adjusted their networks and have started to revise loyalty programs to better reflect post-pandemic demand realities. The next step will be a riskier move, to reduce some premium seating in favor of more economy seats. This better matches with demand as it looks now.

Low-Cost Airlines Get Their Cost Advantage From Simplicity: Higher pilot costs have led some to believe that low-cost carrier business models are dead. This is far from the truth, as low-cost carriers keep things simple to keep costs low.

Bleisure Travel Is Not New, But It Certainly Is Now More Recognized: Large U.S. airlines have talked about Bleisure, or blended, travel as a key to replace lost business revenue. This type of travel is not new, and while it can be promoted this comes with new risks.

The Craziest Airline News Of The Week, Only One U.S. Airline?: There was a lot of crazy news in the U.S. airline industry this week, including flights to the moon.

How Running An Airline Is Like Playing A Board Game Well: Running an airline well has parallels to playing board games effectively. Using integrity, knowing how to win, and seizing opportunity when it strikes are all important things for airlines, and make for better board game playing too.

The Aviation Industry Is Investing In Sustainable Fuel, But More Is Needed: Sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, is an encouraging way for airlines to become more sustainable. But SAF production today provides only a tiny amount of the industry’s fuel needs, and scaling up production has uncertain economics. The industry should promote a robust plan toward their 2050 goal.

Why Airlines Sometimes Knowingly Load Schedules They Can’t Fly: Most people buy tickets for flights that will depart in 90 days or less, but airlines load schedules for sale almost a year in advance. This has encouraged some airlines to load bigger schedules they they can fly, and they trim five months or so before departure date.

Why Airlines Like Extra Fees So Much: While people like to complain about airline fees, airlines continue to explore new ways to attract revenue beyond the ticket. There are compelling reasons driving this behavior, and as fees grow so must transparency to consumers.

Airline Rankings Often Based On Product Features Versus Value