5 airline stories to watch in 2025

- The future of Boeing’s reputation and production rate remains uncertain as safety and quality concerns linger.
- The incoming Trump administration might reconsider consumer protection laws enacted during the Biden administration.
- An ongoing investigation into airline loyalty programs could be impacted by the change in administration.
Well friends, we made it to the end of another year, basically, and what a year it’s been.
In the aviation world, we saw the Federal Aviation Administration get reauthorized, numerous new consumer protections from automatic refunds for canceled flights to a new rule to make travel safer and more dignified for wheelchair users. Not to mention a slew of decisions on mergers, more and more attention paid to the dangers of turbulence and the ongoing saga of whatever’s happening at Boeing these days. Also, drones?
I’m hoping the drones go away in 2025, and at least we don’t have to worry about another FAA funding fight for a few more years, but many of these stories are going to keep on keeping on.
Here are five things I’m watching out for (and will very likely be writing about) in the new year.
1. What’s happening at Boeing?
Safety concerns and supply chain issues at Boeing have been a major theme of the last few years. The company submitted to increased regulatory oversight and made lots of commitments to increasing safety and quality control at its factories.
I don’t think Boeing is going away – the simple fact is that Airbus, its main competitor, doesn’t have enough production capacity on its own to make up the slack in demand for airplanes even if it wanted to – but it remains an open question how quickly Boeing will be able to restore its production rates and if it will ever regain its reputation as the undisputed premier airplane manufacturer in the world.
In 2025 it’s going to be important to continue cutting through the noise and remembering that not every aviation incident that involves a Boeing aircraft is Boeing’s fault, but it will also be important to see how the company performs and if there are continued quality issues with new planes as they roll off the line.
I don’t think it’s overly biased to say we should all be rooting for Boeing to turn things around. It benefits the traveling public when airlines feel like there’s real competition among plane manufacturers and when the average traveler doesn’t think about exactly what kind of aircraft they’re flying on.
Last week’s Cruising Altitude:Travel hacks don’t really exist, but there are ways to fly better.
2. Are tightened consumer protections here to stay?
The Biden years were characterized by a slew of new consumer protections in the travel space, some of which, like automatic refunds for canceled flights, were codified into law.
But others are a little more tenuous, even if they’re largely popular. A recently finalized rule enumerating protections for disabled travelers could theoretically be unwound.
The incoming Trump administration has signaled that it’s looking to take a more hands-off approach to regulating many industries, and that could mean it wants to unwind some of the new rules if it’s able to do so.
Outgoing Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told USA TODAY in a recent interview that he’s worried about changes to some policies implemented during his tenure, but that he’s not overly concerned about some of the most popular ones, yet.
“When it comes to things like the refund rule, that’s not just a rule, that’s a law now. It’s backed by the FAA reauthorization, which means automatic refund provisions are something that would take an act of Congress to undo, and they were done on a bipartisan basis,” he said. “This work has such bipartisan support among the traveling public that there would be real consequences to undercutting it.”
3. Will airline loyalty programs change?
Consumer advocates have, for years, been saying that airline loyalty programs are opaque, and that companies have unilaterally been making points less valuable and reward tickets harder to book.
The Department of Transportation recently opened an investigation into how those points are valued and if airlines are doing anything untoward with their frequent flyer programs.
Republican administrations are typically thought of as more business-friendly than Democratic ones, so it’s not clear if the investigation will yield any fruit under a Trump administration, but the data will be available and it will be interesting to see how, if at all, it’s acted upon.
Or maybe airlines will just keep making small changes to their programs that make it harder and more expensive to cash in points.
4. Will the FAA keep hiring?
Another big problem in recent years has been hiring at the FAA. Airlines, especially, have been eager to point fingers at short staffing in control towers as a major cause of delays, especially during peak travel seasons.
Buttigieg told USA TODAY that trend has started to turn around, but he acknowledged that more controllers need to be hired before the problem goes away completely.
In the new year, will the new administration keep up the effort?
5. Will more airline mergers get approved?
One of the major merger mishaps of 2024 was the end of JetBlue’s proposed tie-up with Spirit Airlines. Since it was shot down, Spirit has filed for bankruptcy protection and JetBlue has launched its own turnaround plan aimed at making the airline more consistent and profitable.
With a more business-friendly administration set to come to Washington in the new year, will we see further consolidation in the airline industry? It remains to be seen – as it is, the industry is already pretty small with just four major dominant players in the domestic market. If more airlines combine, what would it look like for travelers, and what would happen to ticket prices? It remains to be seen.
Zach Wichter is a travel reporter for USA TODAY based in New York. You can reach him at [email protected].
link