2013 Archives

Making in-flight Wi-Fi free for good would change the competitive landscape forcing other airlines to consider free connections for the future. JetBlue might be late to the game, but it's making up for it in a big way.

In the current economic climate, Congress would have to make a compelling case to justify raising the 9/11 Aviation Security Fee, especially when you consider that it proposes to more than double it. Its no surprise that the GBTA and the airlines view the tax as a detriment to business.

Suddenly, Southwest and other airlines to come have a new ancillary revenue source: fees for texting. Southwest is offering its new iMessage fee at an introductory price of $2 per device. Introductory fees tend to be replaced by higher fees at a later juncture.

Kudos to the house panel for the humor and savvy in leveraging BuzzFeed, but the chairman's opposition to in-flight voice calls is based on pandering and misinformation about a service that has worked without incident on international airlines for years.

This is the type of user-generated content hotels really don't mind embracing: Inspirational images taken by fans -- all for free.

Alex Calderwood grew Ace Hotel into a global phenomenon by first understanding the emerging Gen X market in Seattle during the 1990s.

Is the passenger in the middle seat on your flight going to be talking endlessly on his or her Samsung Galaxy given international roaming rates of $1 to $2 per minute? Doubtful. Foreign airlines' flights that allow voice calls average just five or six calls per flight, with an average duration of a couple of minutes per call. Are opponents making too much noise about the issue? Could be.

HomeAway, which is way behind, but pushing hard to improve its e-commerce capabilities, is beginning to feel some heat from Booking.com on one side and Airbnb on the other. You could therefore look at this follow-on public offering as a defensive move. On the other hand, HomeAway's acquisition spree is an aggressive tack, and the public offering signals that HomeAway has no intention of slowing down.

Outside of aerospace and aviation, interesting to see a few consumer travel brands pop up, and we would be keen to know the results of that R&D investment from the likes of Expedia, Homeaway, Ctrip and others on the list. Other interesting related question: would venture investment funds qualify as R&D spend?