Brian Sumers

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.

Mumbai is a big route for United. It uses its flagship aircraft. But it's probably best to err on the side of safety.

By ordering Airbus' longest-range narrowbody jet, JetBlue showed it's serious about international expansion. The jet it ordered earlier in the year has enough range to fly to London, so the airline probably intends to fly farther into Europe.

Big U.S. airlines have erased most of the ghosts from their past. They don't engage in many market share battles or fare wars anymore. They don't dump capacity. But they still have labor disputes with their unions. And those can be as disastrous to operations today as they were two or three decades ago.

For long-haul flights SAS lacks the size and scale to compete with its much larger European competitors. On short-haul routes the airline can't compete with the cost structure of the continent's strongest low-cost-carriers. But there's one place it probably does have an edge: its onboard food.

Thirteen years is a long time to stay at one corporation. Perhaps JetBlue needs some fresh blood. Or maybe Chief Commericial Officer Marty St. George just wants a change of pace.

The Air France-KLM merger has been a textbook example of how hard it is to meld corporate cultures. But CEO Ben Smith isn't letting that deter him from taking a look at new acquisitions. Too soon?

Regardless of how you feel about the handling of the Boeing 737 Max, this is a big issue. Airlines have always assumed global regulators would reach the same conclusions about aircraft safety. Now they're not so sure, and that could cause longer-term issues.

European governments once believed they could rely on the market to ensure their links to the outside world. But many are starting to become more protective of their national airlines. In many ways, it is a return to the past.

When U.S. airlines started making money again several years ago, they added flights to some of the biggest business destinations. But they have mostly filled in those gaps, so now they're taking chances on more unusual routes. Some will surely fail.