Skift Originals

Ongoing capacity discipline by United and other airlines means service punishment for travelers at many small and midsize airports around the U.S.

This is a bitter pill for the geeks at Google's ITA Software. They wanted to transform the back-end of the airline industry with a new kind of airline reservations system. Huge ambitions, but the project never got marketplace traction. Now, the focus will be on powering airline websites, Google Flight Search and Google Hotel Finder.

As a subsidiary, Kayak will soon withdraw behind the Priceline veil. But, it will greatly benefit from Priceline's largesse.

Expect a lot more from Skift, as we add new services and accelerate our growth with this new funding.

Like or dislike his ideas, and there are plenty of people in each camp, Jim Davidson stirs things up with his advocacy, and the travel industry is a much better enterprise for his presence. Disruption is never neat, and it comes in all shapes, sizes and bobbleheads.

In one of the only instances where mobile doesn’t refer to a smartphone, CVBs are physically meeting tourists where they are and meeting their need for instant relevant information.

As ticket prices have been pushed lower and lower, fees have become the difference between profit and loss for all but a few airlines in the U.S.

It's deal-time 24/7 in the world of online and mobile travel. There's nothing particularly wrong with that, although it would be nice to see some originality. It's like a commercial AT&T is currently airing, when the kids in it implore, "We want more, we want more."

Continued funding for BrandUSA, easing up of visa policies, and keeping federal travel spending strong so the industry can benefit, these are the three big lobbying worrying for U.S. travel industry.