Call it the end of an era. After 17 years in the role Bjørn Kjos, the CEO of Norwegian, will step down from the role with immediate effect.
Airplanes and Airports
WOW Air is Dead; Long Live WAB Air
WOW Air is dead. Completely dead. The planes are mostly off flying for other airlines while the true financial impact of the collapse remains u der debate. And yet. Perhaps there is a chance for another life for the flashy, LCC after all?
Virgin Atlantic acquisition of Flybe approved
Flybe’s absorbtion into the Virgin Atlantic family receive final approval from the European Commission last week, with conditions applied. At least one competitor will be disappointed at just how limited the conditions are.
Hackity hack, pay that back
Travel companies (along with nearly everyone else) have spent the past several years talking up how important and valuable the data they collect about passengers is. This week two of them saw huge penalties announced for failing to protect that data. Big rewards availalbe down the line, but big risks along the way.
Norwegian drops Vegas service. Again.
Norwegian will not fly its 787s from London to Las Vegas this winter. That is one of a dozen routes affected in the latest long-haul LCC shakeup.
American gives up on China – Chicago connections
Just over a year after admitting publicly that the routes “often don’t earn enough cash to cover the price of fuel” American Airlines is officially surrendering its route authorities from Chicago-O’Hare to Beijing and Shanghai. Both Delta and United figure to gain significantly as a result.
Melted window grounds a 787
Breaking a brand new airplane never looks good for an airline. Doing it by melting a window out of the fuselage is even worse. Hopefully Turkish can get their first 787 fixed quickly and into service on time.
Joon’s failure had nothing to do with millennial marketing
On Wednesday afternoon the Air France experiment known as Joon officially ceased operations. Reading the post-mortem analysis suggests that Joon’s failure can be attributed to misguided marketing. Alas, marketing was never the problem for Joon. Neither were millennials.
JetBlue’s route shuffle: Big additions, little cuts
ANother route map shuffle is underway for JetBlue, with an unexpected route added in the Caribbean, a cross-town shift in Texas and a couple stations closing elsewhere in the network.
Air Canada, Transat finalize merger plans
Air Canada’s plans to acquire Air Transat moved forward this week, with the two companies announcing conclusion of a definitive agreement for their combination.