Dear readers, Hawaiian Airlines CEO Peter Ingram didn’t say it directly, but I suspect that he wants you to know that he learned a lesson from the failed JetBlue-Spirit merger. As both of those airlines planned for a transaction that would never close, they seemed to lose focus on day-to-day operations. Now that the deal is kaput, each is reeling. “There is a lot going on in 2024 with exciting new projects in addition to the pending merger,” Ingram told analysts on Wednesday during the airline's first quarter earnings call. "My focus is on making sure that we don't lose sight of the fundamenta ..read more

Dear readers, JetBlue — an airline that has lost its way over the past five (or so) years — is finally acting like it is serious about a comeback. In the last three months, JetBlue removed one of the more inept U.S. airline CEOs in recent memory,1 promoted Joanna Geraghty to CEO, and added two of the industry’s brightest commercial minds — Marty St. George, who has returned to the company now as president after a four-year exile; and Daniel Shurz, the new head of revenue, network and enterprise planning, who left Frontier last year when CEO Barry Biffle started chasing any revenue idea he coul ..read more

Dear readers, After last year's debacle of a first quarter result, Alaska CEO Ben Minicucci challenged his commercial team to, within the next three years, break even for the first three months of the year.1 On Thursday, Minicucci said Alaska "far exceeded our initial expectation of a 30 percent profit improvement coming into this year." It even broke even. Well, sort of. Officially, Alaska reported a net loss of $132 million on revenues of $2.23 billion. But like United, Alaska lost the ability to fly its Boeing 737 Max 9s (it had 65 as of Dec. 31) after the FAA grounded the airplane for ..read more

Dear readers, I have it on good authority that some executives celebrated at the Willis Tower in Chicago on Wednesday — not just because United beat analysts’ expectations for the first quarter, but also because (finally!) the market rewarded the airline for it. I try not to focus on equity prices because they don't tell the whole story, but many readers who work at United are compensated partially in stock and they've been underpaid for awhile, so I say: good for them. United still lost money, because this was the first quarter — the worst reporting period for U.S. carriers. United had a p ..read more

Dear readers, I don't have a problem with CEOs making big money, particularly when their companies make profits. No matter what pilot union leaders may say, these are not easy jobs — they require leadership skills, critical thinking abilities, and analytical acumen beyond what most people possess. And since you can’t win the promotion without besting your friends and colleagues, the typical CEO is also a ruthless bureaucratic infighter, and that is an important trait in a very competitive industry. I couldn't be a CEO, even if I had spent the last 20 years working at an airline instead of as a ..read more

Today’s post is sponsored by point.me is supercharging travel rewards participation to the benefit of airlines, hotels, credit card issuers and consumers alike. Get in touch. Dear readers, By now, you probably know that Delta eked out a net profit of $37 million for the first quarter on total revenues of $13.7 billion. That's not a great result, but in winter, any profit counts as victory. What’s perhaps more important, for all of you insiders, is that Delta claims it has its operational mojo back. Before the pandemic, Delta repeatedly bragged about its reliability, highlighting me ..read more

Today’s post is sponsored by point.me is supercharging travel rewards participation to the benefit of airlines, hotels, credit card issuers and consumers alike. Get in touch. Dear readers, I'm back from a wonderful daddy-daughter vacation with my 6-year-old, and I have four items to share about U.S. airlines before earnings season begins on Wednesday, when Delta reports first quarter results. The winter may have been so-so, but I suspect we'll hear optimism from the Big 4 (and maybe others) about the upcoming spring and summer travel season, even if the post-Covid surge is over. Co ..read more

Today’s post is sponsored by point.me is supercharging travel rewards participation to the benefit of airlines, hotels, credit card issuers and consumers alike. Get in touch. Dear readers, During a CEO panel I led last month in Singapore, I made the mistake of asking IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers about China. I couldn't spend 45 minutes with four CEOs at Aviation Festival Asia, and not ask about a country that, for years before the pandemic, dominated conference talk as foreign carriers salivated over attracting a sliver of its traffic. The Airline Observer is a reader-supported public ..read more

Today’s post is sponsored by point.me is supercharging travel rewards participation to the benefit of airlines, hotels, credit card issuers and consumers alike. Get in touch. Dear readers, When I learned that Breeze Airways is adding basic economy, I asked chief commercial officer Lukas Johnson whether I should view this as a response to Spirit, which launched six routes last year from Charleston, Norfolk and Richmond, all competing with Breeze. He laughed. "Oh, I don't think we need that to compete with them," Johnson said, before quoting some data from memory.1 "Check those six m ..read more

Today’s post is sponsored by Point.Me point.me is supercharging travel rewards participation to the benefit of airlines, hotels, credit card issuers and consumers alike. Get in touch. Dear readers, As he nears his two-year anniversary as CEO of one of the world's more mismanaged airlines, Campbell Wilson has won three main victories for Air India. First, he placed orders for hundreds of aircraft with Airbus and Boeing that will allow Air India to grow and reach new markets while giving passengers a modern passenger experience. Second, he led a full rebranding that looks sharp (I th ..read more