Airline industry news, route updates, and carrier analysis
A lie I’ve told countless friends: “The upgrade was totally worth it.” I’ve sat in first class suites on Emirates, sipped Dom Pérignon at 43,000 feet on Lufthansa, and slept in flat beds on Singapore Airlines at business class. The experience is genuinely luxurious. But the price premium? Often it’s not. The decision between first … Read more
In 1991, a startup airline with a single aircraft launched service between Dublin and London Luton. The aircraft was a 46-seat turboprop. The airline charged 99 pounds for a round-trip ticket. Passengers complained it was expensive. That airline was Ryanair, and it would fundamentally alter the economics of aviation. Today, Ryanair operates nearly 500 aircraft, … Read more
The last scheduled passenger Boeing 747 flight took off on December 4, 2023, from London Heathrow. British Airways flight BA112, registration G-CIVF, departed for New York JFK at 11:15 AM, carrying 294 passengers. The aircraft landed in New York eight hours and ten minutes later. That final flight marked the symbolic end of the 747’s … Read more
On January 30, 2009, a Boeing 747-400 took off from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport carrying something unprecedented: a blend of conventional jet fuel and algae-based biofuel. Japan Airlines Flight 109, registration JA8076, flew to Haneda on a route it had flown thousands of times before. But this flight mattered far more than routine operations suggested. That … Read more
When Juan Trippe, the visionary founder of Pan Am, placed the first order for the Boeing 747 on April 13, 1966, he changed aviation forever. The aircraft would be called a “jumbo jet,” a term that didn’t exist before. Pan Am wanted an aircraft to carry twice as many passengers as anything then flying. Boeing’s … Read more