Brian Sumers

The pictures from Southwest Flight 1380 are scary. But flying remains incredibly safe. Investigators will undoubtedly figure out what happened, and when they do, flying will be even safer.

After acquiring Virgin America, Alaska Airlines will switch to a single reservations system next week. The company is confident it will avoid some of the problems other airlines have faced after cutovers. We tend to agree. Let's hope it's a non-event.

The 60 Minutes report on Sunday about Allegiant Air was solid, serious journalism. But it wasn't much of a surprise to industry insiders, who have known about the carrier's issues for awhile. Will executives have to deal with a wider fallout now?

Southwest added a bunch of flights earlier this year departing before 6 a.m., and passengers didn't seem to like them. But fear not. It's a short-term thing.

Did Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al-Baker finally win himself a slice of a U.S. airline? You could say that. But remember JetSuiteX, for now, has only five airplanes. We'll see how much it grows with the new money.

More companies are producing airline seats. That's good news for carriers, which have long complained about production delays from existing suppliers. It's not clear how much it matters for consumers. Airlines don't allot much space to each economy seat so there's not a lot of room for innovation.

There's no doubt Ryanair is a more customer-friendly airline than a few years ago. But its pilot shortage problem last year was a major problem, and it undoubtedly hurt its reputation.

Once all the aircraft arrive, American will be the largest Dreamliner operator in the western hemisphere, according to Boeing. That's good for customers, considering the aircraft receives the highest customer satisfaction scores of any widebody in American's fleet.

The conventional wisdom is that airline passengers will do anything to save a buck. That's often true, but not always. Southwest has recently added more flights that depart before 6 a.m. and arrive after 10 p.m., and its load factor has suffered.

Tag flights — when an airline lands in one international city and then almost immediately takes off for another — are disappearing from aviation as more airlines launch ultra-long-haul nonstops that make the stop unnecessary. But Qantas will probably keep its Los Angeles-New York nonstop for awhile.