Saturday Flyer – December 9, 2023

This is a special edition of the Flyer, coming on a Saturday since I just ran out of time yesterday.  Hopefully a good start to your Monday morning.

The biggest story in aviation this week was, without a doubt, the news that Alaska Airlines is acquiring Hawaiian Airlines.  From all that I saw, no one was predicting this one.  It’s a huge shake up and further consolidation of the industry.  In this case, Alaska says they’ll be keeping the Hawaiian brand, which is iconic, so that’s welcomed news to many.  In terms of which story to share on this, there were many.  I’ve mentioned before that The Airline Observer always has great analysis of the airline industry, and this was no exception.  His articles normally require a subscription, but this one was open to all so I highly recommend reading it.  It would take too long to hat tip everyone who sent me this article this week!  Let’s see what else was going on in the industry this week.

Interesting Aviation News

  • Airline mergers and acquisitions have been fairly common lately, but there have been some big ones over the years.  Here’s a summary of 8 mergers that had a huge impact on the aviation market.  (h/t: Srikanth)
  • Delta made a statement regarding the use of AI in their pricing algorithms.  It will be interesting to get more information on what that really means.  Certainly at PROS we have solutions that are using AI in our RM and Pricing decisions.  (h/t: Andrew B.)
  • IATA released their expectations for 2024 expectations.  There are some interesting numbers as growth is expected to continue.
  • A lot of research goes into the decisions an airplane manufacturer makes for variations of aircraft types.  The Airbus A330-800neo is an example where that research didn’t pan out.  Airbus sold only one of the planes this year.
  • XKCD is known for funny comics and this one captured how travelers feel sometimes when presented with a seat map. (h/t: Jim T.)

Interesting Aviation Fact

Today’s aviation fact is related to the cool picture.  This time lapse video shows the painting process of a new livery for a Qantas A220 that was recently delivered.  It’s really cool to see how the painting process works, especially in this unique custom livery.  The livery represents a design from the Aboriginal Australians that tells the story of Minyma Kutjara.

Cool Aviation Photo

Here’s a photo of the final product from the Qantaslink A220.

The Friday Flyer is a weekly email with links to interesting aviation articles from the previous week.  It was started by the Travel PS team a few years ago as a way to keep interested PROS colleagues updated on the latest happenings in the industry.  It was handed over to me in 2020 to keep it going.  If you know anyone that you think might want to get the Friday Flyer or you no longer wish to receive it, let me know and I can adjust the distribution list.  And if you’ve recently started receiving this, that means that someone thought you should be a reader!