The Professor’s Minute Minute — July 6, 2025

“Stagnation, slashed budgets, paranoia—and a mystery that won’t die.”

Eurozone: Get Your Vacation In While You Can

The IMF’s stagnation warning for Europe means prices might rise and growth might stall. Americans: book those trips now.

🔗 Bloomberg

Ukraine Aid: Pentagon Confirms Pause

No more rumors—the Pentagon has hit pause on reviewing new Ukraine aid packages.

🔗 Aviation Week

US Brand USA Budget: Slashed & Burned

The U.S. Travel Association lashes out at ESTA fee hikes and budget cuts for Brand USA. Tourism promotion is out; penny-pinching is in.

🔗 Travel Weekly Australia

Paranoia or Justified Fear? DOJ Eyes Denaturalization

Trump’s team floats moves to strip naturalized Americans of citizenship. It’s not paranoia if they are out to get you - and possibly me. 

🔗 CNN

MH370: The Mystery That Won’t Die

What really happened? The Atlantic revisits the theories and the heartbreak.

🔗 The Atlantic

Quirky Pick: Airline Passenger Brings Pet Lobster as Emotional Support Animal

A U.S. regional flight reportedly saw its first lobster ESA this week. Crew declined to comment on whether butter was served onboard.

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📣 Don’t forget:

Follow the full archive at t2ni.blogspot.com and look out for the Best of the Week recap every Sunday on LinkedIn and Instagram.

You can also read the Professor’s musings here: https://t2impact.blogspot.com

And explore the old archive: https://www.tumblr.com/professorsabena

Hashtags

#TheProfessorsMinute #Eurozone #Europe

#UkraineAid #Pentagon #USA #Ukraine

#BrandUSA #USA

#Denaturalization #USA

#MH370 #Malaysia

#TravelQuirks #LobsterESA #USA

The Professor’s Minute Minute — July 5, 2025

“Strikes, near misses, and the maths behind the madness.”

French ATC Strike Grounds Hundreds

That strike I warned you about? It’s here. French air traffic controllers have forced hundreds of flight cancellations. Vive la disruption.

🔗 TravelMole

The Animated History of Narrowbodies

A delightful visual tour through the rise of the narrowbody jet. From DC-9s to A320s, all your single-aisle favorites get their moment.

🔗 Visual Approach

It’s Not a Hallucination. It’s Maths, Stupid.

AI hallucinations? The real culprit is often the math. A detailed study breaks down why your chatbot’s nonsense has cold logic behind it.

🔗 ScienceDirect

Pilot Detained After Antarctic Landing Attempt

A pilot trying to reach Antarctica gets detained instead. Almost made it to the ice.

🔗 Simple Flying

The BA Landing Gear at Waterside

If you visit BA’s HQ at Waterside, you’ll see a massive landing gear on display. This is the remarkable story behind it.

🔗 YouTube

Air France Flight Denied Clearance at Chicago

Flew across the Atlantic—just to get told “nope” at O’Hare. The ultimate aviation anticlimax.

🔗 Aviation A2Z

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📣 Don’t forget:

Follow the full archive at t2ni.blogspot.com and look out for the Best of the Week recap every Sunday on LinkedIn and Instagram.

You can also read the Professor’s musings here: https://t2impact.blogspot.com

And explore the old archive: https://www.tumblr.com/professorsabena

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🔖 Hashtags

#TheProfessorsMinute #FrenchATC #France

#NarrowbodyHistory #Global

#AIandMath #Global

#AntarcticaLanding #Antarctica

#BritishAirways #UK

#AirFrance #Chicago #USA #France

🇺🇸 The Professor’s Minute Minute — July 4, 2025

 Happy 4th to those who celebrate it. Thank you for reading. Enjoy the freedom while you can.

“249 years of independence (maybe about to end) —and aviation still finds new ways to surprise us.” 

Trump’s Quiet Nod to Foreign Influence?

A new bill limits tools to combat foreign interference, as Trump takes another swing at the traditional checks and balances. Who benefits?

🔗 Intelligence Online

Aviation Hazard: Airplane Part Blocks Driveway

A piece of airplane dropped into a Raleigh driveway, blocking a car. Forget oversleeping — this is a legit excuse for missing work on July 4th.

🔗 WRAL

Space Is No Longer the Final Frontier—for Data

The Pentagon is rethinking space-based data transport. The future data highway could be a space lane.

🔗 Aviation Week

Evacuation Testing: That Tight Space May Be Too Tight

An expert panel says criticism of FAA evacuation studies is justified. Turns out, squeezing people into cabins for 90-second evac tests isn’t as safe as the models say.

🔗 Aviation Week

Mexico Wins the Quarter

Tourism growth: Mexico edges out the U.S. at the end of Q2. North America’s scoreboard just got interesting.

🔗 TravelMole

Engine Market: Time for Stability

Magnetic predicts the engine market has hit an inflection point — the future is less about fast growth, more about maturity.

🔗 Aviation Week

📣 Don’t forget:

Follow the full archive at t2ni.blogspot.com and look out for the Best of the Week recap every Sunday on LinkedIn and Instagram.

You can also read the Professor’s musings here: https://t2impact.blogspot.com

And explore the old archive: https://www.tumblr.com/professorsabena

🔖 Hashtags

#TheProfessorsMinute #July4th #IndependenceDay #USPolitics #ForeignInterference #USA #Raleigh #Pentagon #SpaceData #Mexico #EngineMarket #AviationQuirks

The Professor’s Minute Minute — July 3, 2025

“AI debates, drone wars, engine drama—and a parking lot crash, pilot edition.”

AI Adversarial Training: Can We Fix Travel AI?

My take on whether pitting AI against itself can produce smarter travel tech—and smarter decisions. Spoiler: the jury’s still out, but the idea is worth debating.

🔗 Read on PhocusWire

WIT at 20: My Reflection on the Future of Travel

Part of WIT’s 20th anniversary series—my thoughts on generational change, fixing travel, and rebuilding consumer trust.

🔗 Read on Web In Travel

Drone Wars: Cartels, Countermeasures & Skyfend’s Shadow Tech

China’s Skyfend is quietly selling anti-drone systems to Mexican cartels. The drone vs anti-drone arms race just escalated.

🔗 Intelligence Online

GTF Engine Woes Get Relief (Finally)

RTX’s troubled geared turbofan engines will get a much-needed capacity boost thanks to EME Aero’s second test cell. Engine shops everywhere breathe a sigh of relief.

🔗 Aviation Week

Why ATC Was Born: The Grand Canyon Crash

A look back at the crash that forced the U.S. to create modern air traffic control—and saved countless lives since.

🔗 Aviation Week podcast

Quirky Pick: Parking Lot Crash, Pilot Style

Four pilots suspended after their aircraft collided at the airport… think of it as the aviation version of bumping shopping carts.

🔗 TravelMole

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📣 Don’t forget:

Follow the full archive at t2ni.blogspot.com and look out for the Best of the Week recap every Sunday on LinkedIn and Instagram.

You can also read the Professor’s musings here: https://t2impact.blogspot.com

And explore the old archive: https://www.tumblr.com/professorsabena

🔖 Hashtags

#TheProfessorsMinute #TravelAI #Singapore

#GenerationalChange #Singapore

#DroneWarfare #China #Mexico

#EngineDrama #Poland

#ATCHistory #USA

#PilotFails

The Professor’s Minute Minute — July 2, 2025

“Growth, grid strain, threatened skies — and a touch of embarrassment.”

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IATA: Up, Up, and Operating Margins Away?

Passenger growth hit 5% in May, but rising operating costs shadow the good news. The boom may come with a hefty price tag. Rates across the Atlantic are WAY down.

🔗 Huwue via LinkedIn

AI: The Power Hog You Didn’t Expect

Generating just one AI video prompt can use as much electricity as fully charging your smartphone dozens of times. The new energy guzzler? Your chatbot.

🔗 WSJ

Essential Air Service: Essential, But Under Threat

The U.S. Essential Air Service program keeps small towns flying — but political and financial clouds are gathering. Can it survive?

🔗 Visual Approach

The State of the Algorithm

A deep dive into how recommendation engines and content feeds now shape everything from what you read to where you vacation — and why that should scare you.

🔗 Download report

Belgium vs Hi Fly: An A340 Soap Opera

Belgium’s government moves against Hi Fly over a charter gone wrong in Chile. A tale of pride, politics, and misplaced widebodies.

🔗 Simple Flying

Quirky Pick: The Airport That Installed a Fake Runway for Birds

In a bid to keep wildlife away from active runways, a Scandinavian airport painted a decoy runway nearby to trick birds into landing elsewhere. Reports suggest the seagulls were unimpressed.

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📣 Don’t forget:

Follow the full archive at t2ni.blogspot.com and look out for the Best of the Week recap every Sunday on LinkedIn and Instagram.

You can also read the Professor’s musings here: https://t2impact.blogspot.com

And explore the old archive: https://www.tumblr.com/professorsabena

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🔖 Hashtags

#TheProfessorsMinute #IATAGrowth #AIandEnergy #EssentialAirService #Algorithms #HiFly #AirlineDrama #TravelQuirks #AviationNerd

The Professor’s Minute Minute — July 1, 2025

 “Taxing times, solo pilots, illusions, and tears ahead.”

When Layoffs Aren’t Just Tech’s Fault

Tech layoffs? Blame Section 174. Trump-era tax reforms force amortization of R&D costs — higher costs, lower innovation, more pink slips.

🔗 Quartz

Eurozone: Welcome to the Slow Lane

The IMF warns of long-term stagnation. It’s not just Brexit — deep cracks run through the eurozone economy.

🔗 Bloomberg

Single-Pilot Ops: Lean or Lethal?

EASA studies single-pilot commercial flights. Efficiency or a gamble at 35,000 feet?

🔗 EASA

The Illusion of the Illusion

Think you’re thinking? Maybe not. An essay dissects how much of our “thinking” is just reruns in our head.

🔗 Sean Goedecke

Transat: This Will End in Tears

Transat fights to push forward its debt restructuring as Péladeau tries to halt the deal. Drama at altitude.

🔗 Pax News

Quirky Pick: The Drone That Tried to Join Tour de France

In rural France, a delivery drone locked onto the wrong GPS target — and tailed the Tour de France convoy for 30 km. The baguette never arrived.

Don’t forget:

Follow the full archive at t2ni.blogspot.com and look out for the Best of the Week recap every Sunday on LinkedIn and Instagram.

You can also read the Professor’s musings here: https://t2impact.blogspot.com

And explore the old archive: https://www.tumblr.com/professorsabena

🔖 Hashtags

#TheProfessorsMinute #TechLayoffs #EconomicStagnation #SinglePilot #AviationRisk #IllusionOfThinking #Transat #AirlineDrama #DroneFails #TravelQuirks

The Professor’s Minute Minute — June 30, 2025

 

The Return of Imperial Airways?

6 Stories from IAG’s Annual Report (2024 Edition)

The Eyes Have It

On page 3, IAG’s annual report features a portrait where the CEO’s eyes aren’t quite aligned — left one more hooded. Intentional? Probably not. But in a world of visual symbolism, it’s an oddly perfect metaphor for seeing risk and opportunity from two angles… simultaneously.

Bondage & Discipline

IAG prepaid €577 million in bonds early (originally due 2027/2029), eating an €11M interest penalty in January 2025. In an industry not known for overachieving homework, this is the equivalent of turning in your final paper a semester early — with a bonus bibliography.

The Missing Planet

There is literally no line item for environmental liabilities in the financials. None. Nada. In a carbon-intensive sector flying 600+ jets, this is either masterful ESG risk control… or the financial equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing “la-la-la”.

Children in the Footnotes

Buried in the ESG section: a reference to human rights audits, including child labor checks per ESRS S1-14. No incidents reported — but the very presence of the clause suggests IAG’s compliance radar extends well beyond the skies.

Debt Down, Discipline Up

Net debt-to-EBITDA fell to 1.1× — a low number in airline land. Combined with solid load factors and minimal yield dilution, this marks IAG as the rare flag carrier that flies aggressively but budgets conservatively.

Now Hiring… Imperial Clerks?

Staff numbers jumped from ~69,000 to ~73,500 in a year. With all this hiring, are we seeing the rebirth of full-service grandeur — or just a new generation of spreadsheet-wielding colonial dispatchers?

Imperial Echoes?

With HQ in London, registration in Madrid, and 26% of shares owned by Qatar Airways, IAG isn’t just multinational — it’s neo-imperial. Its structure recalls its spiritual predecessor: Imperial Airways, which once ruled the skies from Croydon to Karachi, via Cairo.

And the Camel. It's in the picture. 

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📣 Don’t forget:

Follow the full archive at t2ni.blogspot.com and look out for the Best of the Week recap every Sunday on LinkedIn and Instagram.

You can also read the Professor’s musings here: https://t2impact.blogspot.com

And explore the old archive: https://www.tumblr.com/professorsabena

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🔖 Hashtags

#IAG #ImperialAirways #AirlineFinance #ESG #Aviation #AviationHistory #CorporateGovernance #TravelIndustry #TheProfessorsMinuteMinute #AirlineNerd

The Professor’s Minute Minute — June 29, 2025

“From flying wings to airports that collect miles — the future is weird.” But don't worry you can still book a room in space. But if you fligh Delta there - it will be subject to price changes. 

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Airbus’s Flying-Wing Cargo Concept

Airbus has filed patents for a modular flying wing freighter. No fuselage, no tail—just one giant wing. Cargo aviation meets sci-fi.

🔗 View the patent

Space Hotels: Book Now, Orbit Later

Want to stay in space? A $10,000 deposit gets you a spot somewhere above Earth circa 2030. View may vary.

🔗 Space tourism primer

AI to Fix Europe’s Train Delays?

Europe is testing AI-generated rail schedules to untangle its infamous delays. Will AI succeed where generations of humans failed?

🔗 Read more

Ghost Airports of Belt & Road

Dozens of airports built under China’s Belt & Road now see fewer than 5 flights a week. Shiny terminals, empty skies.

🔗 Bloomberg feature

Delta’s AI Super Analyst Changes Fares While You Blink

Delta’s AI fare engine adjusts prices in real time, all day. That great deal you saw this morning? Gone before lunch.

🔗 Aviation Week report

Quirk of the Day: The Airport That Tried to Earn Its Own Miles

A regional airport in Eastern Europe actually applied for a frequent flyer number with its main airline so it could collect points on operational flights. The airline declined… but points for creativity!

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📣 Don’t forget:

Follow the full archive at t2ni.blogspot.com and look out for the Best of the Week recap every Sunday on LinkedIn and Instagram.

You can also read the Professor’s musings here: https://t2impact.blogspot.com

And explore the old archive: https://www.tumblr.com/professorsabena

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🔖 Hashtags

#TheProfessorsMinute #FlyingWing #SpaceHotels #AITrains #GhostAirports #AirfareAI #AviationWeirdness #FutureOfTravel #TravelQuirks