Dennis Schaal

American Express, other mega travel agencies and their corporate clients aren't going to be able to put the genie back in the bottle with badges and leader boards. There is a lot of turf-protection going on here.

As I write this, I'm flying US Airways in coach, and my laptop power has a little more than an hour left. If I were flying Alaska Airlines and had a power plug at my seat, I could finish th...

The mobile experience, both on smartphone and on tablet, is likely to be the website of the future, and airlines will need to strike a balance between helping dreamers dream and selling airline tickets.

It's not surprising that Carnival's new CEO would want his own, new chief marketing officer to deal with what looks to be a protracted brand crisis, given consumer perceptions and pressure from Congress. All hands on deck.

There has been a lot of skepticism about whether Virgin America could turn itself into a profitable airline. It still faces tremendous competition and big-time challenges, but today's earnings announcement was a hopeful sign for an airline that a lot of people feel very good about.

We're not betting that selling half-seats will happen any time soon, but the idea is something worth sitting back and wishing for the next time you can smell what your seatmate had for dinner.

Marriott and JetBlue have admitted that there were hack attempts; Expedia is reporting more credit card fraud, and HomeAway has been coping with an epidemic of phishing incidents. The state of online security and privacy is getting very dicey.

Large corporations tend to be very conservative, and in adopting social media for their road warrior employees, they aren't exactly letting their freak flags fly. This is social media for business travel behind firewalls.

The agreement means sites and apps such as AwardWallet, TripItPro, Traxo, UsingMiles, and Superfly can easily access AAdvantage information for their members, without jumping through hoops and forging workarounds, if they choose to do so.

Airline consolidation is getting disruptive these days -- and not just for stressed out passengers. New global joint ventures such as Virgin Atlantic-Delta and Emirates-Qantas are shaking up the status quo, and will be increasingly challenging to global airline alliances.