As fuel prices have risen in the past year, observers have wondered whether U.S. airlines would be able to pass on higher costs to consumers, many of whom had gotten accustomed to cheap tickets, especially between major cities where competition is fierce.

The common wisdom in the meetings and events space today is that planners should book as far in advance as possible in order to lock in favorable room rates and commission levels. Booking data, however, shows that the opposite has been taking place. The new Cvent Global Business Outlook report shows that group business for U.S. hotels is slated to decline slightly overthe next two years when compared to the strong growth seen over the last few years.

Can an airline use its newest airplane to send a message to its competitors? It’s a timely question after Delta Air Lines said Friday it plans to deploy its Airbus A220 — among the first truly new mainline narrow-body aircraft to hit the market in years — on routes where it competes with United Airlines, American Airlines and JetBlue Airways. Between January — the first flight is Jan.

Online travel companies are finally putting real money into tours and activities — on TV. Booking.com has spent $39.9 million dollars so far this year in the United States on one national TV spot showcasing its tours and activities offerings, according to an estimate from TV analytics firm iSpot.tv,and on Monday TripAdvisor was set to launch two TV national television commercials highlighting its “things to do” in New York City and New Orleans. In 2017, Expedia spent $8.

More than six years ago, Air Baltic, a small government-owned Latvian airline, brought in Boeing and Airbus for a spirited competition between two next-generation aircraft — the Boeing 737 Max 7 and Airbus A319neo. Just before Air Baltic was set to choose Airbus, a Bombardier sales team popped in. “We have something,” one person told Air Baltic CEO Martin Gauss, and it wasn’t the regional jets Bombardier usually pitched small European airlines.

Almost two decades ago, Martin Gauss, leader of a small German airline, emailed David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue Airways. Gauss admired Neeelman’s plucky startup, and wanted to learn what made JetBlue so popular. Neeelman invited him to New York,and the two executives discussed how Neeleman focused on customer satisfaction by offering goodies like free potato chips, while investing in technology, including live television.

With a few ongoing expense and travel fraud scandals happening in the U.S. government, I got to wondering: Are employees really trying to game the expense system in ridiculous ways? Well, no. Most of the time, employees are either screwing up when they ask to be reimbursed for more than they spend, or they are engaged in a high-stakes yet low-reward game to milk a few hundred extra dollars out of their company over the course of the year.

Conventional wisdom will have you believe that low-cost and ultra-low-cost carriers are disrupting the airline industry worldwide with their cheap fares, striking fear in established carriers, while changing what passengers expect. Undoubtedly, much of that is true. From the Americas to Europe to Asia, discount airlines not only have delighted customers with pricing, but have also changed how legacy carriers interact with their own passengers.

Every month Skift will profile someone working in the quirkiest, most incredible and surprising jobs in travel and restaurants. Skift's relentless curiosity about our industries extends to every corner of the labor market. Who knew jobs like this even existed? Colin Presby remembers a Carnival cruise he took when he was 21 and just getting into craft beer.

Even in an age of mobile phones and tablets, travelers — particularly infrequent flyers — often say they still like seat-back screens on airplanes. Many airlines take a different view. The screens are expensive to operate and maintain, and they’re often technologically obsolete within a few years. But since airlines hate to mess with what’s already on board, the screens fly well past their prime.