Airline News

These are the aviation trends we were talking about this week.

It's easy to blame this on the incident last week in Chicago. And perhaps the two things are related. But it's not a big surprise Munoz will not become board chair next year. He had a heart transplant last year, and he has been reducing his role over time.

Sadly, it seems the TSA is still far away from recognizing that its policy requiring travelers to assume a gender when passing through security causes distress to many members of the LGBTQ community.

This is a curious move. In May, JetBlue will start flying smaller airplanes to Cuba, as demand is not as strong as expected. But now the airline wants to add more daily flights. Perhaps this is more of a long-term play.

Is there a more honest airline executive than United's Scott Kirby? Probably not. But that's a good thing. United's 2015 decision to leave New York JFK was a head-scratcher, and it's nice to see new management calling it a mistake.

United says it does not yet know if business was hurt by last week's bumping drama in Chicago. It's possible that the airline lost some customers on the margins, but United will be fine long-term. If the price is right, passengers will be back.

Ukraine's flag carrier is the first airline to follow Lufthansa's bold September 2015 move to add a surcharge to bookings made via third-parties. Yet the industry may be overstating the threat to the revenue of the middlemen.

Mileage Plan from Alaska Airlines just won as the best airline loyalty program in FlyerTalk's annual survey -- largely because of its distance based earnings.

These are the aviation trends we were talking about this week.

Delta says it's using basic economy fares to help better differentiate its products. The jury is still out on whether it will help them compete on routes where they face low-cost competitors.