Airline News

This week in aviation, Anne Rigail will be the new CEO of Air France, an extremely rare appointment in a particularly male-dominated industry. Then we have stories about electronic searches at customs, Real IDs, and how artificial intelligence helps airline news go viral.

To build on a cliché, the only certainty in the airline industry is uncertainty. The past few weeks provided all the evidence necessary to reinforce that this is correct.

The speed at which airline distribution stakeholders are able to transform their distribution technologies so that they can directly impact their bottom line will be determined by their ability to effectively collaborate.

This deal is noteworthy because it represents a recent industry shift in the gravity of airline sales efforts. Work that used to happen on computers that interact mainly with travel agencies is now shifting toward computers that mainly power an airline's brand.com site and other direct sales channels.

Alitalia has a new idea to save the company. Will it work? It's not clear it will, but you probably have to give the airline credit for trying. Right?

New qualification standards for elite status at American and Delta seem to be working as intended: Business travelers are looking forward to better exclusivity while budget travelers are giving up.

If it happens on an airline and someone tweets it, journalists will know. It's often not because of their top-rate investigative reporting skills. Instead, they're using an artificial intelligence platform that flags interesting posts on social media. The future is here, folks.

Anne Rigail has the key task of trying to get the unions onside in order to avert further strike action. If she succeeds, the future looks good for Air France.

Those who fly on American, British, and a dozen other worldwide carriers will soon get better access to Africa with a new partner joining the Oneworld alliance in 2020.

As a Dataminr executive told us, "There is no such thing as a secret now." If it happens on an airplane and someone puts it on social media, it is bound to become news. That's just how it goes now, for better or worse.