The first quarter of the year has been a bloodbath for the travel industry. Planes are flying empty, hotels are empty and other industries impacted by travel and tourism are hurting. Airlines are cutting capacity by as much as 80 percent in the U.S. and foreign airlines such as Emirates are completely grounded. Turkish Airlines has suspended all international flights. Hotel occupancy is in the low teens and even in the single digits in some places. Many hotels are closing…
Over the past several years TAP Air Portugal has come back to life. It’s bought new airplanes, revamped in-flight service and catering, built a new lounge in Lisbon and more. However, there was still the loyalty program which was less than stellar and often wasn’t very valuable to people in…
Earlier in 2019, the flag carrier of Ireland, Aer Lingus, began a brand refresh, switching to a Euro-white livery. The airline is repositioning itself as the best way to get to Ireland and also as a gateway to the rest of Europe. The rebrand has changed just about every facet…
The growing Indian airline Vistara has taken delivery of the first of its long-awaited Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners this past week. It is the first of five and sets the stage for the beginning of true long haul international operations as airlines in India fill the void left by the collapse…
The aviation world has been sharply divided yet again. It’s not unusual for this to happen in the community, we argue about a lot of things such as the merits of tomato juice on flights to the impact of the industry to climate change. This time, however, the issue has…
The recent outbreak of the novel coronavirus 2019 has resulted in many evacuation flights coordinated by various governments and China to quickly remove the respective country’s citizens from China. The U.S. Government along with many European and Asian governments have led rescue flights to bring back citizens to their homelands.…
The long-running probe into Europe’s largest aerospace manufacturer has come to an end and it’s not looking good for Airbus. The European manufacturer has been ordered to pay a record $4 billion to settle allegations of widespread illicit payments to middlemen across the world in countries such as China, South…
The next and final part of the Continental turnaround features employee empowerment and the power of momentum. These are the last two aspects of the turnaround and right there up in importance with listening to the customer. Let the Inmates Run the Asylum This is something that often goes unnoticed…
In the next part of this series, the principles covered here focus on the customer and meeting their needs. Businesses don’t run without their customers. There needs to be money coming in. With the exception of a few special companies in the world, most businesses have competition to deal with.…
In the early 1990s, Continental Airlines wasn’t in a good place. A leveraged buyout firm had just acquired the company after it had declared its second bankruptcy in nine years. Greg Brenneman, at the time a specialist at corporate turnarounds at Bain, was tasked with fixing Continental. There is an…
