Every year, South African Airways (SAA) convenes a panel of leading winemakers and sommeliers to choose the wines served on board its aircraft in the coming 12 months.

Irish budget carrier Ryanair is planning to announce a new global distribution system (GDS) partnership and a product aimed at business travelers in September, as it continues with its customer service revamp.

Pilots at Lufthansa subsidiary Germanwings are set to strike Friday if an agreement isn’t reached Thursday on the issue of transitional benefits.

The commercial air transportation industry is moving to address safety gaps in the system exposed by the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July. The problem the industry has, however, is that solutions to this crisis lie outside of the commercial industry, whose representative organizations have little to no power to enforce change.

"Our government is subsidizing foreign state-owned airlines and giving them an economic advantage over US carriers." What is surprising about the quote, which relates to the call for reform of lending policies of the US Export-Import Bank, is that it comes not from an airline CEO, but from Lee Moak, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), which represents 50,000 airline pilots in the US and Canada.

IATA is calling for Vietnamese authorities to ensure there are appropriate regulatory structures in place to oversee an expected wave of airport construction and privatization.

An incident this week involving two United Airlines’ passengers who apparently got into an argument after one used a gadget to stop the other from reclining her seat is causing quite a bit of general media interest. It seems that one passenger had acquired a gadget that is inserted in the back of the seat in front, making it impossible for that seat to be reclined. The guy wanted to use his laptop.

The Tunisian Ministry of Transport has banned all flights originating from Libyan airports from its airspace until further notice over security concerns.