Marisa Garcia

Helsinki has advantages over larger hubs: its strategic location, and a terminal that is connecting passengers can easily navigate. It must grow without losing that edge.

The declining value of cross-over loyalty programs aside, alliances offer benefits to long-haul customers making connections, but their politics make reaching consensus among members on products and services difficult. As the growth of joint ventures, and other airline collaborations show, there are other ways airlines can deliver value to customers and a seamless passenger experience.

Heathrow has managed to function as a major international hub despite its runway limitations. But future passenger growth means it will need to expand, if it is to hold a leadership position both in Europe and around the world.

Emirates has chosen wisely with Aniston. Anyone else playing this role might have come across as snobby, but we really feel for her even if we're the ones stuck in coach.

Coming up with fresh ideas in aviation takes guts. Sometimes your guts are cut out, and handed back to you on a nicely compartmentalized in-flight meal tray. But there's no stopping some people.

This is the natural next step for Virgin America, ViaSat, and Netflix and the perfect complement to JetBlue's Amazon Prime offering.

The thinking behind this is that tap-tap and connect is easier for passengers—and more intuitive to mobile-device users—than loading a portal and entering information to connect through a browser. There's something to that. The beacon ‘reminders’ to use the connection, however, will have to be designed carefully so they don’t annoy.

Vararadi seems to follow Baldanza’s example for Ultra-Low Cost Carrier success with Spirit to the letter, creating new flyers with little more than low fares and a smile.

Boeing has its own production schedule to meet and American’s issues with seat-manufacturer Zodiac are not really Boeing’s problem.

While program delays are problematic, and this situation has been ongoing, the contract dispute between American Airlines and Zodiac Aerospace now moves to the courts. A settlement is always a possibility.