Airline News

Piece by piece, private equity firm Warburg Pincus is building Mercator into a rival to Sabre and Amadeus -- two travel technology providers that provide overlapping software and operational services to commercial airlines (and that recently went public after restructurings by buyout experts). Expect the Mercator merger with Accelya to spur an acquisition spree.

A strange bug in the upgrade process at American Airlines had been preventing passengers from getting early upgrades. The airline finally fixed the glitch last week.

Despite an enormous pool of potential passengers, Africa’s low-cost market has yet to take off. Are restrictive bilateral agreements to blame, or is something else going on here? For many airlines, the numbers just don’t add up.

Many of the world's airlines know they're not as good as retailers like Amazon in targeting offers for individual passengers. A lot of carriers want to improve, so they can get the right offer in front of the right person at the right time. But it won't be easy, since airlines often have clunky computer systems.

With the TSA caught up in a federal hiring freeze, we could see a return to last summer's security line debacle for flyers. Not to mention the potential impact of airports overwhelmed by hundreds or thousands of protestors.

It's nice to see United Airlines on the offensive again. Look for more flights on bigger jets in key business markets from United, which has fallen behind American and Delta in some important urban markets.

With so many new aircraft coming onboard, Norwegian was always going to have to cast its eyes further afield for new destinations. Air fares between Europe and South America tend to be on the pricey side, so Argentina is a sensible place to start shaking things up.

The complexity of traveling with pets is often a major headache for their owners. Many brands are looking to ease pain points, but a lot of work still needs to be done, especially by airlines.

Let's give some credit to United CEO Oscar Munoz for his honesty about problems with airline IT systems. Yes, he was speaking with employees, and not the public, but many CEOs aren't this candid when they meet with workers. Former United CEO Jeff Smisek certainly wasn't.

The Obama Administration's decision to block Qantas' application for antitrust immunity with American came as a surprise to most observers. The Trump administration's Department of Transportation would normally be likely will rule otherwise. But this new administration is unpredictable, so it's hard to say for sure.