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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 1d

This meme is the limit of "AI" in aviation in any meaningful way, on at least a ten-year horizon.

It's useful technology! Airline or ground services company can connect it to other systems and really useful information or even trigger alerts!

But it's not what the grifters are selling as "AI".

"is this a pigeon" meme, but it's a pushback tug instead of a butterfly, and it says "is this a [catering truck?]"

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 1d

Smart, practical implementation of "AI" (i.e., gen AI/LLM nonsense) adjacent tech like the object recognition work that Collins (galley dot ai), LHT (seer), LSG (AICA) have been doing for a few years risks getting tarred (by its creators, tbh) with the AI brush when the bubble bursts.

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 1d

One of the most frustrating parts of the whole inevitable AI bubble bursting in aviation is that there are actual innovations — marked as AI, often by parent companies, to ride the bubble — that are likely to be taken out in the splash radius.

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 1d

2) every implementation of LLMs has been an unmitigated disaster. BA is going through one right now with its AI closing valid customer service requests.

3) the very worst chancers and grifters in aviation are TOTALLY on board the AI promotion hype train. It's blockchain all over again.

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 1d

Follow Seth for the latest AI nonsense coming out of the World Aviation Festival in Lisbon.

We remain deeply skeptical of AI in aviation for 3 key reasons (just to start off with):

1) successful aviation tech badged as "AI" is, once you start asking questions, just an algorithm (LHT seer, etc)

Seth Miller @wandrme.paxex.aero · 1d

"We won't even think about luggage. It will just get there."

One of the many questionable claims about how AI will change the travel world here at #AviationFest this morning.

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 2d

Couldn't resist.

theupfront.media/update-19-am...

Screenshot of the Miranda Priestly blue sweater monologue from The Devil Wears Prada.

Subtitles: Oh, okay. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your MRO hangar and you select, I don't know, that lumpy blue seat, for instance

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 2d

Not the first time people have asked us that question with a faintly quizzical/baffled/curious look on their faces, tbh…

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 2d

So, we're not saying that we've seen the new JSX faux-retro livery before.

Only…

…is Cold War East Germany really the market vibes JSX is going for?

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 2d

In which we start the week by asking, among other things: why is American covering 500 regional aircrafts' seats with a 💩-coloured headrest?

And, importantly, what would Miranda Priestly say about it?

theupfront.media/-19-american...

Update #19: American’s regional refit, 777X delays, SAS Eurobiz, Geven Boeing linefit, Thai sells Virgin business as premium economy, and more…

American’s ugly brown headrests, the 777X slips to 2027, SAS brings back Eurobiz, Geven linefits at Boeing, Thai starts selling Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class suite as “premium economy plus”, and the 7...

theupfront.media

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 2d

If it helps, it takes only a small adjustment to the rhythm to sing it to the tune of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".

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Reposted by The Up Front

The Up Front @theupfront.media · 3d

UPDATE: the German for "confusion over the naming of subsidiary airlines" is, we are reliably informed:

Tochterfluggesellschaftsnamensverwirrung

Yes, of course we're talking about the Lufthansa Group. Enjoy our weekend long-read.

theupfront.media/how-do-you-s...

How do you solve a problem like Lufthansa? Strategies and insights from its group Capital Markets Day, Part 1

Lufthansa is consolidating its 12–14 airlines, leaking out a new Lufthansa Group Lounge and brand concept, growing in longhaul and leisure — and there are passenger experience implications throughout

theupfront.media

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 3d

Yeah, it's really notable how of the top 20 metro areas in Europe, the only ones without airline hubs are German (and, arguably, Milan post-Alitalia, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some movement there either with LH-ITA).

The Up Front @theupfront.media · 3d

UPDATE: the German for "confusion over the naming of subsidiary airlines" is, we are reliably informed:

Tochterfluggesellschaftsnamensverwirrung

Yes, of course we're talking about the Lufthansa Group. Enjoy our weekend long-read.

theupfront.media/how-do-you-s...

How do you solve a problem like Lufthansa? Strategies and insights from its group Capital Markets Day, Part 1

Lufthansa is consolidating its 12–14 airlines, leaking out a new Lufthansa Group Lounge and brand concept, growing in longhaul and leisure — and there are passenger experience implications throughout

theupfront.media

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Reposted by The Up Front

The Up Front @theupfront.media · 4d

Because of this history, Lufthansa's hubs are in the #5 (Frankfurt) and #4 (Munich) metro areas of its home country.

Sure, Frankfurt has finance, and Munich has business (also leberkäse), but Air France's main hub isn't in Bordeaux, and BA's isn't in Liverpool.

Screenshot: Today, even in pure city terms (rather than the more accurate metropolitan area ranking) Berlin and Hamburg are larger than Munich. Cologne is next, then Frankfurt. That doesn’t even take into account the size and importance of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region, which includes Cologne, Düsseldorf, Bonn and a dozen or so other sizeable cities adding up to around 11 million people. That’s nearly twice the population of the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main region.

[An overhead view from an airplane of Frankfurt, with the main railway station and small skyscraper district in the centre. Caption: While Frankfurt's airport is the Lufthansa Group's main hub, its actual metropolitan catchment area is small relative to other European hubs, or indeed German metro areas. Image: John Walton]

Lufthansa-the-airline used to operate some point-to-point flights from some other cities, but it closed its last non-FRA/MUC longhaul base at Düsseldorf over a decade ago. It also no longer operates Lufthansa flights from non-FRA/MUC bases on a regular basis.

What that’s meant for the vast majority of Germans (47 million out of the 58 million people who live in a German metropolitan area, of a total population of 80 million) is that their airport does not have nonstops to anywhere that isn’t Frankfurt or Munich on Lufthansa.

Lufthansa doesn’t get the nonstop boost to being an airline of choice that having a home hub in a largest/capital city would bring it, because prospective passengers have to connect in Munich or Frankfurt.

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Reposted by The Up Front

The Up Front @theupfront.media · 4d

We're trying something new: a weekend long-read, part 1 of our in-depth analysis of Lufthansa's Capital Markets Day:

• airline consolidation plans
• an almost-hidden leak of the new Lufthansa Group Lounge , • hub airlines vs Eurowings
• leisure and networks

theupfront.media/how-do-you-s...

How do you solve a problem like Lufthansa? Strategies and insights from its group Capital Markets Day, Part 1

Lufthansa is consolidating its 12–14 airlines, leaking out a new Lufthansa Group Lounge and brand concept, growing in longhaul and leisure — and there are passenger experience implications throughout

theupfront.media

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 3d

That one's easier: Russia overflight bans. Gotta fly south anyway, so you might as well change plane.

The Up Front @theupfront.media · 3d

An excellent question, and I think the answer is possibly tied up in (a) ability to single-hop connect over LHR/CDG/AMS with BA/AF/KL, (b) lack of smaller widebodies/757-200 replacements, (c) ~*~ BER airport nonsense handwave ~*~

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 3d

So Tochterfluggesellschaftnamensverwirrung? Should there be an ß in there as well somewhere?

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Reposted by The Up Front

The Up Front @theupfront.media · 4d

One of the things people often forget about Lufthansa — as they pelt down Frankfurt Airport's interminably bleak corridors, or glide through the Lufthansa-co-owned terminal at Munich Airport designed for efficiency — is that it is a product of history.

German history.

*West* German history.

Screenshot text: To understand Eurowings and its place in the Lufthansa Group and the German travel market, you have to remember the history of Germany, and the Cold War in particular. That history created, then widened, the major gap in how Lufthansa serves modern Germany today.

In a Germany divided after World War II, one with historically decentralised economic centres stretching back as far as the Holy Roman Empire, geography has created structural issues for Lufthansa as a hub-based airline.

Unlike its major competitors (Air France-KLM and IAG, owner of British Airways and Iberia, most notably), Lufthansa’s hubs are neither in its national capital nor in its largest metropolitan areas. Instead, they’re in metro areas #5 (Frankfurt) and #4 (Munich), largely driven by Lufthansa having been the national airline of the former West Germany, and Frankfurt being the biggest city in the middle of that country after the World War II.

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 4d

BER could definitely be a longform piece on its own — as a starter answer: Lufthansa's own hub problems, fear of cannibalisation, its labour relations/contracts, BER-the-airport not being up to being a hub operation, ability to use the Star JV for US/CA traffic on United…

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 4d

We're taking recommendations from German speakers on the compound word for "subsidiary airline naming confusion".

Any advances on Tochterfluggesellshaftnamensverwirrung?

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 4d

Indeed. BER is such a binfire that I'm not necessarily *surprised*, but it remains such a massive opportunity for so many airlines, especially Lufthansa.

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 4d

Because of this history, Lufthansa's hubs are in the #5 (Frankfurt) and #4 (Munich) metro areas of its home country.

Sure, Frankfurt has finance, and Munich has business (also leberkäse), but Air France's main hub isn't in Bordeaux, and BA's isn't in Liverpool.

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 4d

One of the things people often forget about Lufthansa — as they pelt down Frankfurt Airport's interminably bleak corridors, or glide through the Lufthansa-co-owned terminal at Munich Airport designed for efficiency — is that it is a product of history.

German history.

*West* German history.

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 4d

We're trying something new: a weekend long-read, part 1 of our in-depth analysis of Lufthansa's Capital Markets Day:

• airline consolidation plans
• an almost-hidden leak of the new Lufthansa Group Lounge , • hub airlines vs Eurowings
• leisure and networks

theupfront.media/how-do-you-s...

How do you solve a problem like Lufthansa? Strategies and insights from its group Capital Markets Day, Part 1

Lufthansa is consolidating its 12–14 airlines, leaking out a new Lufthansa Group Lounge and brand concept, growing in longhaul and leisure — and there are passenger experience implications throughout

theupfront.media

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