Biggest Airline Innovation and 11 Other Aviation Trends This Week – Skift

Throughout the week we post dozens of original stories, connecting the dots across the travel industry, and every weekend we sum it all up. This weekend roundup examines aviation.

For all of our weekend roundups, go here.

The Biggest Airline Innovation of This Century: Airlines have innovated a lot since Skift Airline Weekly’s launch in June 2004, but there’s one innovation that we think radically changed the industry.

The Most Amazing Airline Failures of the Past 15 Years: The airline industry is a tough business. Dozens of carriers have gone belly-up since Skift Airline Weekly began publishing in 2004. We picked 10 of the most interesting bankruptcy and grounding stories in the last 15 years.

The Worst Airline Prediction of the Past 15 Years: Skift Airline Weekly celebrates its 15th anniversary this month, and we’re taking a look back at some of our highlights. We learned in 2008 the danger of making airline predictions, especially when an airline has its government’s support.

Alaska Air Exec Says Technology Makes or Breaks a Merger: Alaska Airlines’ merger integration for technology has been nearly flawless. That’s great news, but the company has been so focused on it that it hasn’t been doing much digital innovation. Let’s see if that changes soon.

Did Lufthansa Group Overreact to Low-Cost, Long-Haul Threat? Lufthansa Group was terrified it would repeat past mistakes, so it built an airline to compete with Norwegian Air and other low-cost, long-haul carriers. Now that airline, called Eurowings, is kaput, and Lufthansa can chalk up another mistake.

Celebrating 15 Years of Skift Airline Weekly Making an Impact: The airline and media worlds have changed remarkably since Skift Airline Weekly published its first issue in 2004. Here we take a look at how we started and what the future might hold.

Travelers With Food Allergies Gain New Legal Backing From U.S. Government: Food-allergic flyers have long suffered inconsistent policies and enforcement when it comes to airlines protecting their health in the skies. That’s why new clarity from the Department of Transportation is welcome news.

New Accor and Air France-KLM Loyalty Partnership Raises Bar for Targeting Biz Travelers: Like a similar program now in place between American and Hyatt, the partnership between Accor and Air France-KLM aims to share customers between similar target markets. Unlike its American cousin though, this partnership is open to all loyalty tiers.

Tiny Air Italy Pushes Back on Big U.S. Carriers That Say It Competes Unfairly: The three largest U.S. carriers say Air Italy competes unfairly. But it is highly unlikely the airline is breaking any U.S. or EU laws. If the U.S. airlines want to break Air Italy, they’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way — through ruthless competition.

Philippine Airlines Makes an About-Face on New Leadership: This is quite a communications blunder. A premature announcement of a leadership change last week had to be corrected after the PAL board met Monday. In short, the PAL chairman’s daughter, Vivienne Tan, won’t be leading the airline after all. Maybe someday.

Basic Business Class Fares Set Landmines for Frequent Flyers: A new series of unbundled business class fares coming to market pushes many frequent flyer benefits to the side. For those religious about loyalty programs, the fares are worth avoiding.

TravelPerk Partners With Lufthansa for Direct Booking: TravelPerk’s reveal comes on the heels of TripActions’ announcement earlier this month. So what travel management company will be next to offer direct distribution?

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