The Top 10 Airline Industry Developments in 2019
Photo Credit: IAG’s Air Europa move punctuated a year of turmoil for Europe’s weaker carriers. Flickr / Olivier CABARET
Skift Take
It was yet another tumultuous year in the airline industry with many storied names (Thomas Cook, for example) going under and the grounding of one of the world’s best-selling jets (the Boeing 737 Max). No one said aviation was an easy business.
As the International Air Transport Association (IATA) discussed in detail last week, the world’s airline industry enters the 2020s with a 10-year profit streak. But as 2019 again reaffirmed, profits are increasingly concentrated among the sector’s largest intercontinental airlines, together with its strongest low-cost carriers. Left out is a long tail of smaller and less-efficient carriers unable to cope with the rigors of geopolitical volatility, subdued economic growth, intense competition, currency volatility, and other pressures. Indeed, 2019 was both a prosperous year for many and a year of death and distress for others. Here, in no particular order, are Skift Airline Weekly’s 10 most noteworthy developments of the past year.
Trade wars and economic softness decimate the air cargo market.
It seems like ages ago, but it was only in 2018 that cargo markets flourished, providing a major lift to passenger airlines based in export-heavy countries. This year, with tariff bat
