Travel brands will work to drum up as many sales as possible in the next five weeks. When the holiday season ends, travel purchases tend to drop for one or two months.
Airline, hotel and car rental apps are rated by users as being well below the quality of travel booking apps. That they trail the travel booking apps isn't a huge surprise, but the the size of the ground they would have to gain to catch up is fairly daunting.
If Virgin Atlantic takes delivery of the 21 Dreamliners it has lined up, they will make up a majority of its fleet. With the airline's growth limited by Heathrow capacity constraints, taking advantage of the economic benefits of the new planes is of paramount importance.
How do you compete when a low-cost carrier like Spirit is eating your lunch? Eat what your competitor eats. Delta is trying out the Spirit diet for extremely price-sensitive travelers.
Higher bandwidth and on-demand entertainment are today's competitive weapon of choice. Whether crowded passengers will forget their woes by watching shows is anybody's guess.
Delta's decision not to replace the vendor raises the question of whether its passengers will notice, or care enough, to get the airline to change its mind. This might be the perfect test-case for the true appeal of duty-free.
To airlines seeking to attract more passengers and elicit ancillary revenue, giving passengers wide choice in in-flight entertainment, whether it is on seatbacks or through passengers using their own personal electronic devices, is serious business.
Delta has taken on an ambitious program for passenger experience enhancement. It will interesting to see whether other SkyTeam members will join this initiative and what competitors do to catch up.