unaligned

Southwest Airlines plans to shift its domestic reservation system to a new platform Tuesday, attempting to avoid the havoc that plagued similar transitions at other carriers. “These are very complicated,” said Bob Edwards, a former chief information officer at United Airlines who supervised the merger of reservation systems for United and Continental in 2012. “All of them are serious and high risk. Anything can go wrong.” Southwest’s update is particularly important as the carrier has expanded to international markets and become the biggest US airline by domestic passengers. The change will give the airline the same ability as rivals to accept foreign currency, recover faster from storms and change schedules more easily. Customers shouldn’t notice differences to the booking process -- assuming all goes smoothly. <br/>

Emirates announced Monday that it will temporarily cut its daily non-stop service to New York’s JFK down to twice a day. The airline currently operates 3 flights to JFK. Emirates confirmed that the changes will take from June 4 until June 20, and will resume normal operations from July 1. “This decision was made as part of our routine operational review, to ensure that our capacity is deployed to best serve customer demand across our global network," the airline said. The temporary reduction of flights follows Emirates’ announcement in April to reduce flights to 5 of the 12 US cities it currently serves, which include Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Seattle, Boston and Los Angeles. <br/>