Brian Sumers

JetBlue may be a customer favorite, but if the airline loses its cost advantage over United, Delta, and American, it will be in trouble. It makes sense for the airline to try to reduce costs to stay competitive.

The basic aircraft cabin has not changed in decades. Airbus wants to give airlines flexibility to innovate, and that's impressive. But let's be honest. It is unlikely carriers will ever adopt Airbus' new platform. And if they do, it's even less likely they use the new functionality to install coffee shops or onboard gyms.

For the past five years, Mark Schwab has tried to manage a complex alliance of nearly 30 airlines. Given the number of differing opinions involved, Schwab has had one of the more difficult jobs in the airline industry.

This is an oops moment. No matter whose fault it is, Southwest should have not launched new service to Mexico without receiving final regulatory approval.

The DOT doesn't have as much regulatory power as other government agencies, so it's doing what it can to try to protect consumers. At the least, if an airline permits voice calls, it will have to tell consumers what it's doing — before they buy a ticket.

It's not likely Alaska Airlines would have lost in court, but this case was still a nuisance, so it makes sense that the company resolved it. Now, Alaska can finally focus on absorbing Virgin America.

The Department of Justice has an odd relationship with airlines. It seems to enjoy grabbing headlines about how it's doing its job to protect industry competition. But when it comes time to actually getting airlines to make real concessions, it falls short.

It's nice that the DOT finally got around to approving Norwegian's Irish unit to fly to the United States. But this is not as big of a game-changer as some have suggested. Norwegian was going to grow in the United States and offer low fares on transatlantic flights, regardless of whether this happened.

Politics is a funny game. There was little doubt the government would approve Norwegian's application — it had no legitimate basis to deny it — but the DOT still waited years before finally getting around to it. That was probably not fair to Norwegian, but the airline will survive.

Even if this test goes nowhere, and Delta stays with the status quo, you should give the airline some credit for trying something new (even if it's old). This is why most insiders believe Delta is the most innovative major U.S. carrier.