Dennis Schaal

If KLM passengers live through social media, then they can now pay through social media as the airline makes its Twitter and Facebook communications more commerce-oriented.

Providing tablets for passengers who didn't bring a computing device is a nice add-on service, and WestJet will make a few bucks (Canadian) out of the program.

Orbitz will feel the most pain from the end of its exclusive relationship with Kayak, and will try to make up for it by forging new relationships with other metasearch players around the world.

As Expedia CFO Mark Okerstrom said the other day, "scale begets scale." Orbitz's modest 15% growth in room nights in the fourth quarter partially reflects the lack thereof.

Competing against the likes of Priceline's Kayak, Expedia's Trivago and even Google will be very tough going for Room 77. Is Room 77 giving up on the challenge or playing possum while it hones its mobile skills?

"Honest to Goodness Indiana" speaks authenticity, and more of a statewide focus than "Restart Your Engines," but forward thinking? We see nothing forward-thinking about the branding or the campaign. Sorry.

Norwegian is getting everything into place for the beginning of its "shuttle" service into the U.S., and it's hard to imagine that the DOT would ban its entry outright despite objections from U.S. airlines and unions.

Was the Expedia-Travelocity deal just a harbinger of things to come? Expedia thinks so and is looking for additional online travel agency partners who would consider outsourcing the hard stuff to Expedia.

TripAdvisor has plenty of cash on hand, but if it is true to historical form, it will likely be seeking to continue making smallish acquisitions of struggling travel startups, such as it did with Oyster.com, on the cheap in 2014.

TripAdvisor pulled its TV advertising so far in 2014 and now we know why: CEO Kaufer says it wasn't hard-hitting and memorable enough, and he's looking for a different impact.