Airlines tips

JetBlue Airways will land on the European continent next summer with new flights to Paris.

Sam Gilliland, who was the CEO of Sabre Corporation for 10 years, is taking the top role at Accelya.

The U.S. Transportation Department (USDOT) said it planned to seek higher penalties for airlines and others that broke consumer protection rules, saying they were necessary to deter future violations.

Verint provides customer service software to roughly 40 airline clients, among those other verticals. The Long Island, New York-based company is still gaining new airline business, but much of it is coming from existing customers. 

The U.S. Transportation Department (USDOT) said late on Monday it would examine the large number of Southwest Airlines cancelled and delayed flights in recent days to determine if they were in the airline’s control, calling them “unacceptable.”

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian made a call to action for more funding and investment in the U.S. air traffic control system after an outage Wednesday disrupted more than 11,000 flights across the country.

Sun Country Airlines CEO Jude Bricker believes it’s premature to draw firm conclusions about the emergence of new travel patterns seven months into the travel industry’s recovery. But Bricker said at the recent Skift Aviation Forum that surging airfares are changing travelers’ behaviors, including driving more consumers to fly on Tuesdays instead of the weekend.

Executives from the venture capital arms of three large travel companies — JetBlue, Alaska Airlines, and Amadeus — each shared details with Skift about what they are focused on in 2023 and going forward. 

The leading group representing U.S. travel agents testified in D.C. on Thursday that it supports a federal proposal to require much fuller and upfront disclosures by the airlines of all their fees, but raised concerns about how much agents would be require to tell their clients in “offline” meetings or phone calls.

One of the best definitions of high-end hospitality I saw this year suggested: “Luxury is when the standard operating procedure isn’t showing.” This hit the nail on the head for the products and experiences that transcend good into great. The guest feels a sense of detail, thoughtful anticipation, and comfort but the gears and machinations to deliver it remains hidden.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, January 3, and here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Every year we give you a glimpse into how our favorite stories evolved from idea to publication, offered by the reporters and editors themselves.

Airfares on key corporate travel routes are expected to rise by as much as 25 percent in 2023 amid high fuel prices, a stronger U.S. dollar and labour and aircraft shortages, a forecast from American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) showed.

Delta Air Lines is finally doing it. The airline will make good on its promise to make in-flight Wi-Fi free to all passengers in February.

Much of the travel industry is continuing to recover after the pandemic and despite growing anxieties about the economy, with some metrics better than ever last year. 

In hindsight, we should have known the mess that was air travel in 2022 was coming. Airlines kicked off the year canceling tens of thousands of flights amid the surge in Omicron variant cases that kept crews at home, and travelers — unfortunately — on the ground.

Southwest Airlines was up and running on a normal schedule on Friday after a massive winter storm crippled operations this week and exposed problems at the low-cost carrier.

Southwest Airlines capped off its 2022 with the unenviable distinction of cancelling more than 15,000 flights in total during the week of Christmas, the result of a system failure caused by several issues that were exacerbated by a nationwide winter storm.

Chinese airlines will be the early winners of the country’s international reopening, analysts say, having kept most widebody planes and staff ready while foreign carriers struggle with capacity constraints after previous border openings.

The Obama administration approved U.S. educational and people-to-people travel to Cuba in 2015, but a U.S. federal judge in Florida last week ordered four major cruise lines to pay more than $400 million in damages plus legal fees to a U.S. company that ran the port in Havana until it was confiscated after the Cuban revolution of 1959.

Airlines have boosted January international seat capacity to and from China by 9.5 percent over the last week as they ramp up flights after its border opening, according to aviation data provider Cirium, though flights remain at a fraction of pre-pandemic levels.