I had lunch today with a former editor who was talking about a recent trip he'd made to the West Coast. "So I 'JetBlued' out to California....," he said nonchalantly, with little notice of the verb he'd just created. Like "Googled," ...READ»
Shifting routes reflect the changing economics of the airline industry. Business hubs in Asia and the Middle East are strong. European and U.S. leisure routes ain't.READ»
JetBlue today announced that its third-quarter earnings fell 71 percent because of hurricanes and fuel and ticket prices. It seems that the startup airline is already facing the problems of the bigs as it tries to join their ranks. ...READ»
Can JetBlue make the leap from popular (and profitable) niche airline to major player -- without losing its soul? Only if it can grow big but stay small at heart.READ»
Ellen Simonetti was fired last month as a flight attendant for Delta after posting, on her mildly amusing personal blog, what the New York Times calls "provocative pictures" of herself in uniform draped over airline seats. Regardless ...READ»
JetBlue Airlines has recently come under fire for sharing 5 million passenger itineraries with a defense contractor without passengers' knowledge or consent. In so doing, not only did the company violate its own privacy policy, it ...READ»
Blockdot Inc.'s new advergame for American Airlines, Chair-iots of Flyers is charmingly disarming.
You work at Amalgamated Consolidated Inc and business is booming! To celebrate, the Chairman of the Board, Rich N. Power has lifted ...READ»
Whenever I get stuck with a lousy seat on a flight, I always wonder what I could have done differently to avoid it. Or why the airline didn't tell me my seat doesn't recline. Next time I'm doing my homework first, at seatguru.com. ...READ»
As a frequent flyer between American coasts, I have become a regular customer of JetBlue, with its typically cheap(er) nonstop flights from New York’s JFK airport to San Francisco. I still remember the first time I landed in ...READ»
You'd think more companies would have gotten it by now. Unfortunately, organizations that put customers at the center of what they do are rare -- so rare that we're celebrating them. Meet the best customer-focused outfits, and learn from them.READ»
I've long been a fan of serial entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder of the UK's low-fare no-frills airline easyJet, and myriad other easy-spinoffs.
Stelios, as he prefers to be called, is cheap, and proud of it. He ...READ»
Most travel experts think Ryanair's announcement that it is considering charging for bathroom access on the plane was purely a PR ploy. But I think it was more in the nature of a trial balloon.
Yes, Ryanair is justly regarded ...READ»
Enough is enough.
On July 17, I blogged about Ryanair's announcement that it was mulling the idea of requiring passengers to pay to for potty privileges.
Ryanair has now topped itself. It now is floating the trial balloon ...READ»
Babel 800 is a new service that offers a network of interpreters that folks can hire to interpret meetings, interviews, and other conversations via speaker phone. You dial an 800 number, enter your client code, select an interpreter, ...READ»
Sunday's New York Times ran a front-page article warning of the possible need for a taxpayer bailout of airline pension funds. As United struggles to emerge from bankruptcy protection, it needs to address its $13 billion in pension ...READ»
Stelios Haji-Ioannou, known throughout Europe by his first name, provides cheap travel for the masses. His formula for business success? It's easy -- as in easyJet, easyCar, even easyCinema. Just slash costs, maximize publicity, and "sweat the assets."READ»
In June, Scott Kirsner examined Delta Airlines' upstart carrier Song's startup strategy. Almost a year prior, Song's head was asked to develop a low-cost airline that could compete with JetBlue and Southwest.
Now, Song officials are ...READ»
This month, Northwest Airlines' identity is merging with that of Delta Air Lines, starting with abandonment of the old Northwest uniforms. FoxBusiness.com reports that baggage counters, gates, and luggage claim areas are all being ...READ»
Yesterday's aircraft crash in the Hudson River may have been miraculous in terms of survivability, and it boosted the standing of Twitter, which got stunning images in circulation before the mainstream media. But its suspected ...READ»
