The first decade of the 21st century has brought a huge amount of upheaval and changes to the air travel industry. We just simply don't fly how we used to, and as an industry, the air travel climate is completely different in many ways than it was just ten short years ago. As a send off to the first decade of the 2000s here is a look back at the 10 biggest stories / events and changes in air travel over the past ten years.
There is no other defining moment in recent commercial aviation history that can come close to the impact of the morning of September 11, 2001 and the aftermath both globally, and for air travel.
I remember when electronic tickets started making their way into air travel in the mid-1990s. All of a sudden, it seemed like they were everywhere - but they really weren't. It wasn't until May 2008 that paper tickets were officially gone.
Sometimes notoriously bad, but certainly cheaper and often even better than legacy airlines, the budget / low cost airline has revolutionized travel for many parts of the world.
The 2000s meant a decade of lean years in many ways for airlines - ail-lines. Long-standing airlines that dated back to the 1920s and 1930s went bankrupt and ceased operations - Swissair, Aloha Airlines, Ansett Australia and Sabena to name a few.
Airlines started a fee frenzy, particularly when fuel prices skyrocketed. Fuel surcharges on top of baggage fees, paying for pillows - and the thing is, even when the price of fuel came back down to earth, the fees stayed. Dig into those pockets: whether you fly, check it, or sleep on it - it's going to cost you.
When a bomb plot was thankfully foiled in London (July 2005) where would-be-bombers planned to use soda pop bottles infused with explosives on several commercial, transatlantic flights, it ended up in restrictions on liquids.
Star Alliance got the trend started in 1997, but airline alliances didn't fully blossom until after 2000.
Open Skies came about later in the decade but has already had an impact. Essentially, it is opening up more landing rights and reducing restrictions not only between the Europe and the United States, but in a separate agreement, Europe and Canada.
Tougher economic times, and fuel prices are often cited as reasons for this next story-maker of the past decade. Airline mergers seem all the rage. Rumors continue to fly on which airlines will merge next.
The increasing awareness of climate change has led to pointing a heavy finger at air travel as a major polluter of the air. In some ways, it looks like the end of this decade shows possibilities that airlines may green up their act.
