There has been a ridiculous amount of airline and related news in the past few weeks, and we have struggled about where to share our thoughts. Here are a few that caught our eye along with some final pithy observations from a very busy month in the air.
AA Goes Back to the Future
We were there when AA made a major commitment to IFE seat-back screens just over a decade ago. We were also there when they made the decision to rip all those screens out and rely on streaming locally stored content to passengers’ personal devices.1 Now things have come back full circle (as they always seem to do) with AA announcing a commitment to seat-back screens starting in 2028.
We’ve been in the room when these discussions happen. The argument against screens is tough to beat from a pure numbers perspective: they are expensive to buy and maintain, content licensing is also not inexpensive, and updating them can be a logistical nightmare.2
The counterarguments, while not based in any math, are empirical — when there are screens in seats, people will watch them AND passengers perceive airlines without screens to be not as good.
The other argument we favored was that by taking out seat-back screens, airlines eliminated a major way to communicate with their customers. We also always chuckled when airlines would spend a lot of money on a fancy new safety video, and then the vast majority of their domestic passengers don’t get to see it because it was manual demo time.
UA Goes Just About Anywhere
Earlier this week United announced the latest list of new destinations it plans to serve with its new A321XLR aircraft starting next year. There’s a fair chance that most people could not place all of them on a map.3 (We’re state geography bee finalists and had to look one or two of them up!)
This new ability to serve smaller overseas destinations with nonstop flights is one of the next big things in the industry.4 Now, we are generally opposed to narrow body aircraft over the ocean, but if you’re going to your summer vacation in Toulouse, there’s a whole lot of time to be gained by just going straight there versus through CDG or FRA.5 The question is just how many of these markets are out there that can be operated directly? Are there enough party people to make new nonstop to Ibiza work?6 The network guys in Chicago are certainly eager to find out.
Starlink Goes Paid(?)
We doubt too many people paid attention to the news that Frontier (along with the other Indigo group airlines) is planning to launch Starlink onboard internet in 2027, but as usual, our friend Seth Miller was on it. This is a remarkable change for an airline that virtually bragged about the fact that it did not have onboard wifi and that’s what helped it offer cheaper fares for you, the passenger.
It’s been an industry given that Starlink insisted on its service being free to passengers, but it was inevitable that the company was going to run into airlines that had absolutely no desire to do that.7 There’s something to be said that if you’re going to charge for everything, you charge for EVERYTHING. Airlines usually run into problems when they stray from consistency.
AOL Goes Off
We get a fair amount of article summaries every day, and most don’t garner a click, but man this one sure did.
6 Airlines That Just Aren’t Worth It Anymore
OK, we’ll bite. So, we figure that current industry-whipping boy AA would be on there and probably Southwest because of assigned seats and bag charges. (See prior note about consistency.)
But wait, guess what other airlines aren’t “worth it anymore”?
Delta? United? JetBlue? Yup, they also make this list. (So does Frontier, but we’re not going to pile on.)
Listen, we love our friends at Alaska, and we’ve enjoyed the couple flights we’ve made on Breeze, but those two alone aren’t going to get you everywhere you need to go.
Credit to the author, we thought she might close by saying you should try to fly Emirates whenever you take a trip.
Quick Notes from the Road: Summer Edition
As we’ve said before, for us, flying in the summer is like being a regular gym-goer in January. All the newbies are hogging the machines and getting in the way. That elitist observation aside, here are some other things we saw out there this past six weeks or so.
It’s your prerogative, as a window seat passenger, to open and close the window as you see fit. (We are window seat passengers in spirit, but aisle passengers in practice for size reasons) That being said, it’s borderline sociopathic behavior to not have the window open for takeoff and landing. Not only is it a safety concern, but you also are missing out on the WONDER AND GLORY OF FLIGHT.
You don’t need to hammer the IFE touchscreen. You can just press it normally. Please stop hammering it. Stop now.
Is there no more charming sound than that of ice bags being hammered in the galley on a 7 AM departure?
Finally, we love our hometown airport, but the Bluegrass Airport logo is atrocious —we saw it a lot this past month and it doesn’t get better8
Notes
People forget that United made a similar decision even earlier than AA, but backtracked much sooner
As we used to teach our new IFE colleagues, planes don’t stay in one place for very long
Right at press time, AA made a similar announcement, but with nowhere as cool as Ljubljana or Okinawa
We remember when it was going to be A380s from hub to hub all the time — what a world it was back in the mid to late 2000s
Time is never gained going through CDG or FRA — we have donated many hours in both places
There are few places we’d rather be less than a return flight to Newark from Ibiza — the Sunday night redeye out of LAS might have met its match
Copa is actually the first carrier to have a paid Starlink offer — it started this July
If you’re thinking of Silicon Valley then that’s on you
Meanwhile, AC used to have screens at every seat - even on measly RJs. Now the screens have been decommissioned, crudely covered with a cheap decals. I get it… the old Thales systems from 2004 had run their course and maybe they’re planning on retrofitting a new system/screen into the old seats (or just waiting for new seats altogether). But in the meantime, taped up screens signal a lot of things to pax - none of them good. And also emphasizes that seat infrastructure often outlives IFE tech.