American will take delivery of its first 737 MAX later this year. All seats in regular economy will have 30-inch pitch. American AirlinesSkift Take: In today's airline landscape, legacy carriers generally offer between 30 and 32 inches of seat pitch. Discount airlines give customers 28 or 29 inches. American Airlines had planned to shrink some seats to 29 inches, but customers complained. The plan is off. That's good news. — Brian SumersPerhaps it was the complaints from customers.

Over 30 years, Copa CEO Pedro Heilbron has turned the airline from a tiny regional player into one of the most profitable carrier sin the Americas. Copa AirlinesSkift Take: Panama's Copa Airlines is not well-known in most of North America, but it's among the most profitable airlines in the Americas. Its secret? Like Southwest Airlines, it keeps its model simple.

KLM CEO Pieter Elbers. He is charged with ensuring the Dutch airline remains innovative, even though it is part of a much larger company. Air France-KLMSkift Take: KLM may not be a perfect airline, but it's surprisingly spunky considering it's owned by a giant French company that also controls Air France. The two airlines couldn't be more different.

Ships belonging to the World Class from MSC Cruises will be able to hold more passengers than any other cruise ship. A rendering is shown in this image. MSC CruisesSkift Take: MSC Cruises continues to show its ambition as it plans to add more ships to an already fast-growing fleet. Now the question is whether demand can keep up with all that supply. — Hannah SampsonEuropean cruise lineMSC Cruises announced this week that it is extending its growth spurt.

Carolyn Pearson, CEO of Maiden Voyage. The company just released a set of educational modules to help level the playing field for female business travelers. Maiden VoyageSkift Take: Supervisors who don't send women on business trips, in a misguided effort to avoid dealing with women's safety issues, are doing their companies a disservice by suppressing that talent. Companies that tackle that duty of care head-on are playing with a full deck.

Skift Take: Take our daily and weekly insights anywhere with our newly designed and mobile-optimized newsletters. — Rafat AliIf you’re viewing this, you likely got here from one of our dailynewsletters. In that case, you’ve most likely already noticed that our newsletters have receiveda much-needed facelift. We have the same great content with a brand new look.

A computer systems failure at British Airways in late May was caused by human error, the CEO of the airline's parent company said Monday. British AirwaysSkift Take: We wish British Airways had explained what happened right away. But now that we know the situation, we understand why the airline gave little information after its late-May computer failure.

A customer uses facial recognition software to board a KLM flight in Amsterdam. JetBlue soon will become the first U.S. airline with a similar program. KLMSkift Take: These are the aviation trends we were talking about this week. — Sarah EnelowThroughout the week we post dozens of original stories, connecting the dots across the travel industry, and every weekend we sum it all up. This weekend roundup examines aviation. For all of our weekend roundups, go here.

United Airlines soon will start flying nonstop from Los Angeles to Singapore using a Boeing 787 aircraft. United AirlinesSkift Take: Business travelers love saving two or three hours of flying time. They'll surely love United's new nonstop. But for everyone else, 18 hours is a long time to spend on an airplane. Even a 787. — Brian SumersWant to spend 18 hours on a Boeing 787 flown by a U.S.

Lufthansa Group is one of several airlines using bots to respond to Facebook Messenger queries. The company is trying to make the bots as human-like as possible. Lufthansa GroupSkift Take: Bots have come a long way since Alaska Airlines introduced 'Ask Jenn' about a decade ago. But they're still not perfect. At least for now, we'd rather have a human touch.