TAP Air Portugal has announced the launch of Economy Prime, a new long-haul cabin designed to offer travellers more space, more privacy, and a superior travel experience within the Economy segment. Flights featuring the new Economy Prime cabin will launch on 1 June 2026, and the cabin is now available for sale across all TAP channels and travel agents. Economy Prime expands TAP’s long-haul offer, giving travellers greater choice between Economy and Business, and is available on both the A330 and A321LR fleets. 

Jetstar is rolling out a new seat design across its Boeing 787 fleet that puts power at the center of the passenger experience. Its first aircraft equipped with Burrana’s RISE Power and Passenger Service Solution has now entered service, bringing high-speed charging and integrated seat controls to every traveler. The rollout signals a broader shift to treat power as core infrastructure for the connected cabin. Jetstar’s newly retrofitted Boeing 787-8 aircraft, registered VH-VKK, introduces a fully integrated seat system built around Burrana’s RISE Power platform. 

FlightPath3D has introduced Luci Live, an AI-powered upgrade that turns the inflight moving map into a more interactive travel tool. It brings real-time, personalized features to the map experience, letting passengers ask questions, explore destinations, and make bookings during their journey. It shifts in-flight entertainment (IFE) from something passengers watch to something they can interact with. The inflight moving map has long been one of the most widely used features onboard, but Luci Live expands its role, turning the map into an AI assistant that passengers can interact with using simple taps or natural language.

Alaska Airlines – a Corporate Partner of the FTE Digital, Innovation & Startup Hub – and Hawaiian Airlines have launched a single, unified Alaska Hawaiian mobile app. Built to support travel across both airlines, the new app brings everything travellers need into one streamlined experience – from booking and check-in to day-of travel updates – with improved performance and expanded features, particularly for legacy Hawaiian Airlines app users. This app redesign also represents an important step in bringing the two airlines closer together, while preserving their distinct identities and experiences.

United Airlines' new 222-seat Boeing 787-9 is one of the most premium-heavy long-haul aircraft any US airline has introduced in recent years. The new “Elevated” configuration includes 64 Polaris suites, 35 Premium Plus seats, and 123 economy seats, a sharp shift from United’s more typical 257-seat 787-9 layout and a clear sign that the airline is willing to trade density for higher-end demand. United is also being deliberate about where these jets go first. The aircraft fly select domestic routes before beginning international service from San Francisco to Singapore on April 22, 2026, followed by San Francisco to London Heathrow on April 30, with the premium-configured 787-9 then scheduled to serve both routes daily through the rest of the year.

Flying with Malaysia Airlines is already one of the best ways to explore Asia, and the Oneworld member’s extensive regional network is now growing even wider. July will see the start of daily flights from Malaysia Airlines’ busy Kuala Lumpur hub to the Chinese cities of Shenzhen and Changsha. September will also see Malaysia Airlines return to Fukuoka, arguably one of Japan’s most diverse destinations. Special introductory Business and Economy fares are now available to all three cities – and those tickets include a complimentary side trip within Malaysia, so you can look forward to two holidays in one!

In-flight entertainment, e-commerce and connectivity technology company Moment has launched a new next-generation ISP-independent Wi-Fi portal. The portal has been designed to give airlines full control over their onboard connectivity, passenger experience and value generation, regardless of which company is their connectivity provider. Moment says it acts as a strategic digital layer between connectivity infrastructure and the services it enables, thereby enabling airlines to control branding, access models, service logic and the overall passenger interface.

Alaska Airlines is making one of its boldest moves yet since its 2024 merger with Hawaiian Airlines, investing significantly in its long-haul premium travel offering in 2026. Later this month, Alaska will roll out its reimagined business class experience onboard its Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners featuring 34 enclosed suites with sliding doors and lie-flat beds. Until now, Alaska had been operating former Hawaiian Airlines 787 aircraft with Hawaiian crews, service, and onboard amenities. While the physical remains unchanged, the entire experience is being rebranded into a distinct Alaska Airlines product, including new high-quality dining and beverage options, upgraded bedding, and refreshed amenity offerings delivered by an Alaska flight crew.

Today, travellers are required to show their passport multiple times across their journey including for check-in, boarding, transit and arrival processes. With airlines, airports, border agencies and partner airlines all carrying out separate checks, the experience can be time-consuming and fragmented. To help change that, Air New Zealand is working with partners to test a digital identity that allows travellers to add their passport information in the airline’s app, securely share verified identity information at online check-in, and then use that information to support biometric verification at selected touchpoints across the journey. The pilot also supported the use of Apple Wallet’s Digital ID.

Airline retailing and content aggregation solutions provider, TPConnects Technologies, has integrated the Model Context Protocol (MCP) into its Iris platform, introducing an AI-ready interface that provides standardised, machine-readable access to content from more than 60 airlines through a single protocol. Following a successful proof of concept, the enhancement enables online travel agencies (OTAs), travel management companies (TMCs), and travel sellers to automate airline onboarding and dynamically access carrier capabilities. The move addresses industry fragmentation across NDC, GDS and low-cost carrier channels.

The next big thing from ThinKom is impressively small. The carrier launched its new ThinAir Nexus antenna this week compacting 10+ years of inflight internet experience into its smallest commercial aviation antenna yet. Even as Electronically Steered Antenna (ESA) solutions capture the attention of the market, ThinKom remains committed to its patented, flight-proven VICTS technology. The redesigned Nexus antenna builds on that successful foundation, but with a couple key updates.

Spanish budget airline Volotea Airlines is facing backlash after the carrier reportedly asked passengers to pay a very small fuel surcharge on tickets that had already been purchased, turning what should have been a settled fare directly into a point of dispute with passengers. The added charge appears modest, at around $8 to $11 per passenger, but the issue is far bigger than that amount. This highlights yet another way the situation in the Middle East is affecting individual travelers.

Enjoying robust demand for its RAVE series of embedded inflight entertainment systems, RAVE Aerospace has identified widespread memory chip shortages and safety regulators’ more stringent head injury criterion (HIC) certification requirements as among the challenges presently facing aircraft interiors stakeholders and their airline customers. A competitor to IFE industry stalwarts Panasonic Avionics and Thales, RAVE Aerospace is the brand that emerged after private equity firm Kingswood Capital Management completed its acquisition of Safran Passenger Innovations (SPI) in early February.