Luis Gallego has run nearly every kind of airline there is. A regional carrier. A low-cost startup he co-founded. Vueling. Iberia Express, which he built into one of Europe's most punctual airlines. Then Iberia itself, which he turned around. Today he leads International Airlines Group: British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling, and LEVEL. 627 aircraft. 285 destinations. Around 122 million passengers a year. Few executives have seen the business from that many angles. Hear what he sees next. ✈️ Skift Aviation Forum | November 11-12 | TWA Hotel, JFK 🎟️ Register: hubs.li/Q04z3ClB0

From earlier: United Airlines said Thursday it is offering a status match to members of American Airlines and Delta Air Lines loyalty programs to give them a chance to try out Starlink. The carrier launched a special webpage for the offer: “Don’t keep buffering: switch to United and get the fastest Wi-Fi in the sky.” American AAdvantage and Delta SkyMiles members have to spend a certain amount and fly United within the next 90 days to get status through January 2028. Here are the spending thresholds for United’s status match: hubs.li/Q04z5Yrq0

What happens to travel search when travelers stop typing and start asking? Bryan Batista, CEO of Skyscanner, is joining us on stage at Skift Data + AI Summit Europe. He stepped into the top job in 2025 after a career that runs through Booking .com, where he led Rentalcars .com, Tesla's European sales expansion, and McKinsey. Few leaders sit closer to the question of who makes the AI shortlist. Bryan will be in conversation on what it takes to run one of the world's biggest travel platforms as discovery shifts and Europe's rules take hold. 📍 Tuesday in London. 5 seats left: hubs.li/Q04z3DTZ0

Thai Airways CEO Chai Eamsiri told reporters on Friday that he was removed from his role, days after severe flooding in Bangkok triggered widespread flight disruptions and left thousands of passenger bags stranded at the country’s main international airport. The board voted to remove Chai from his position following days of disruption at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, where flood-related staff shortages hit baggage handling and flight operations. “They ordered me to step aside from my duties as CEO,” Chai told reporters Friday. “They want to find out why the crisis was not resolved.” hubs.li/Q04z5dFk0

Rules made in Brussels shape the trip long before a traveler books it. Maja Bakran Marcich, Deputy Director-General for Mobility and Transport at the European Commission, helps write those rules. On October 15 in Dublin, she'll share where travel fits in Europe's economic future at Skift Transatlantic Summit, held in partnership with the @ETC_Corporate and hosted by @TourismIreland Apply to attend: hubs.li/Q04yHccx0

Next week, Women Leading Travel makes its European Leadership Exchange debut in London. On Wednesday, around 150 senior women across travel and hospitality will come together at art’otel Battersea for a sold-out Leadership Exchange, with companies including Cunard, Intrepid Travel, Accor, IHG, Marriott, Mandarin Oriental, Agoda, Priceline, Amadeus and easyJet represented. London follows our September Exchange in New York, with Montréal and Las Vegas still ahead as Women Leading Travel continues its 2026 Leadership Exchange series. Montréal | October 26 Las Vegas | December 8 Explore the upcoming Leadership Exchanges → live.skift.com/wlt-leadershi…

As travel companies put together their 2027 budgets, I want to hear more about the AI projects they are willing to keep paying for. - What has become useful enough that employees depend on it? - What has improved the customer experience? - Which experiments looked promising but did not earn a wider rollout? Those are harder questions than whether a tool can produce an impressive demonstration. On Oct 6, 2026, Skift Data + AI Summit Europe comes to London for the first time. We have built the program around the people making these deployment decisions—and the commercial consequences of getting them right or wrong. hubs.li/Q04z5dFR0

Hilton says it wants to make booking through AI agents easy. Yet, Muse, one of the best-known agents couldn’t get room rates from Hilton’s website in spot tests this week, according to a leading analyst. Skift’s own searches via Muse hit similar speed bumps on the sites of Hilton, Marriott, and Hyatt. But the picture was messier than a simple block. A rival agent, Instinct, pulled rates from all three. That suggested that the hotel groups weren’t shutting out agents as a rule. hubs.li/Q04z4Zn30

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Hopper co-founder Dakota Smith said this week on LinkedIn that he has left the Montreal-headquartered company after three years leading its most important division, Hopper Technology Solutions. HTS, a B2B business, has partnerships with banks, airlines, and travel agencies — including Uber, Expedia, RBC, and, as of this week, Aven Hospitality. It generated 90% of Hopper’s revenue, Smith said in 2025. One source said Smith’s departure will be a blow to HTS. “Dakota had a lot of credibility,” this source said. “So when he packs up and leaves, it’s a bad signal, I think.” hubs.li/Q04z5drz0

Soon, a lot of travel bookings will come from a buyer that isn't human. Airlines built NDC, and hotels fought for direct bookings. Neither playbook planned for an artificial intelligence agent doing the booking for the traveler. So what does "direct" mean now? Skift Commerce Summit, November 11, New York. Register: hubs.li/Q04yHwBj0

As travel companies move AI out of the pilot phase, the build-versus-buy question is getting harder to ignore. The real advantage may come from technology that has already been tested against live bookings at scale. hubs.li/Q04xMR-r0 In partnership with HotelPlanner and hubs.li/Q04xMR-s0

“Tourists are among the few taxpayers a city can charge without worrying about the next election. They arrive, spend, pay, and leave. If the bill goes up, their only real objection is to stay home or go somewhere else. “In July, I wrote about the quiet reinvention of the hotel tax. The old American model used visitor money to build convention centers, finance destination marketing, and bring in more visitors. The newer version uses the same taxes to support housing, schools, climate projects, and ordinary city services. “That story followed where the money now goes. This one asks why governments in very different places keep reaching for the same taxpayer.” hubs.li/Q04z4bjN0

"Our view is that your new digital front door is an agent, and we want to help you build it." — Bret Taylor, Chairman of the Board, OpenAI and Co-Founder, Sierra What better way to open Skift Global Forum 2026 than with a conversation between Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Bret Taylor, and Skift's Rafat Ali? Thank you to our opening night sponsor, Sierra! What the conversation here: hubs.li/Q04yYLPP0

AI can make your business faster. But if your data is a mess, it can also create “faster chaos.” That’s the warning from Kari Anna Fiskvik, Chief Digital & Technology Officer at Strawberry. For Kari Anna, successfully scaling AI starts below the model: with clean, connected data and the architecture that allows it to move between systems. As AI models become increasingly commoditized, she argues that the real competitive edge could lie in the data underneath them. On October 6, Kari Anna joins us at Skift Data + AI Summit Europe in London to continue the conversation. 📍 London | October 6 🎟️ Join us: hubs.li/Q04yXsCG0

"United Airlines is offering status matches to American and Delta customers, inviting their best passengers to come over, try the Starlink Wi-Fi everyone is talking about, and see if they want to stay. "For the moment, United has the better story. And Starlink really is a big improvement. Anyone who has dealt with airline Wi-Fi that cuts out, crawls, or makes you log in five times understands why frequent travelers care. If you spend a lot of your life on airplanes, several uninterrupted hours of normal internet is a big deal. United got ahead, and it would be crazy not to market the hell out of that while it can. "I just wouldn’t confuse it with lasting loyalty." hubs.li/Q04y_Sqv0

The U.S. Open nearly doubled creator credentials this year. Fans responded with a viral TikTok of a ring light going mid-point. F1, cruise lines and luxury hotels are getting the same complaints. Brands are still raising creator budgets. So the paying guest has become the backdrop. So far, no one is measuring what that costs. hubs.li/Q04yZGM10

Hotel companies know what artificial intelligence is costing them. They're less sure what it's earning them. That gap was a recurring theme this week at the Destination AI event in Washington, where executives described a shift from deploying AI tools to proving they pay. "We all know what the costs are right now," said Pat Nestor, senior vice president of data and AI at Hyatt. "Certainly in the early days, everything was sort of measured in hours saved. OK, great. That's helpful in terms of your own personal efficiency. But where does that live on a P&L sheet?" hubs.li/Q04y_TRV0

Thank you to our official translation and transcription services partner, Wordly, for partnering with us at Data + AI Summit Europe next week!