Airline News

In a deal that could prove a major upset in Latin American aviation, Azul has put together what amounts to a hostile takeover of South America's largest airline, Latam Airlines Group. The Brazilian carrier plans to submit its proposal to the U.S. bankruptcy court overseeing Latam's restructuring shortly.

Unlike for its U.S. peers, Irish discounter Ryanair's summer was strong from start to finish, thanks to Europe's higher vaccination rates. The airline is planning an aggressive expansion in Europe to capitalize on almost-insatiable demand for leisure travel and while its larger competitors scale back their networks.

Leisure, leisure, leisure. If this pandemic has taught us anything, it's that almost everything we knew about the airline industry is no longer true. Everyone has a guess on when…

In Skift's top stories this week, Hawaiian Airlines bets a new business class cabin will attract leisure travelers, the UK is increasing taxes on long-haul flights, and Hilton gets an enormous boost from strong business travel numbers.

Leisure travel will lead airlines out of the pandemic, and the latest sign of that is the outsize performance of Air France-KLM's low-fare, leisure subsidiary, Transavia. The discount carrier's results bested even the group's cargo revenues, which carried it through the earlier part of the pandemic.

Sometimes there is too much of a good thing like at Spirit Airlines, where a too-rapid summer recovery ended in operational disaster. The discounter has scaled back its plans with a focus on hiring and improved reliability with its eye now on 2023 to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic.

Delta and United showed off their marketing prowess with their expanded New York schedules. But the added flights are simply examples of the airlines protecting their access to key New York airports, and defending against the new American-JetBlue alliance.

Allegiant Air CEO Maurice Gallagher thought returning to 2019 levels of flying would be as easy as "turning on a switch." He was wrong, and disruptions cost the airline millions during the third quarter. Still, Allegiant managed a rare pandemic-era achievement by turning a profit and increasing revenues vs. the 2019 period.

5G has the potential to significantly impact the air travel experience and enable numerous process improvements. Enhanced connectivity will benefit both travelers and employees by improving everything from passenger processing and security to baggage management and retail operations.

With three of Boeing's marquee aircraft programs under pressure, the planemaker continued to struggle in the third quarter with further losses. But that didn't stop management from painting a rosy picture with 737 Max deliveries climbing and a robust outlook for jets.