Who’s excited for the annual tradition of seeing how you did with your predictions for the year? Anyone? ANYONE?
No, you shouldn’t be excited, because they were nearly all wrong. I mean… seriously. I did not see anyone predicting a global pandemic bringing the industry to its knees. BUT, as I said, they were nearly all wrong. Some actually came true, and well, I figured we should highlight those here.
Read below for the few that proved right. This year, there were so few that were correct, I ended up looking at every single prediction, even when people ignored the rules to only leave one.
Next year, I’ll go back to the regular rules. Leave your one best prediction for 2021 in the comments. Anything beyond the first one will be ignored during next year’s review.
REAL ID Delayed
- Kilroy – The requirement for Real IDs for domestic US airline travel will not be fully, truly implemented before the end of 2020.
- Jim – 1. REAL ID deadline will be extended again.
Comment: Though the reason for the delay was the pandemic, it’s not clear whether this would have happened on its own or not. I tend to think REAL ID would have finally happened this year, but well, I’ll give you two the benefit of the doubt.
A New Name for Moxy
- PF – Moxy becomes BREEZE, the name of the parent company.
Comment: Not much of a stretch on that one, but it did prove true.
American’s Southern Partners
- DesertGhost – American will finalize an agreement with one or more partners in South America to at least partially offset the loss of LATAM.
Comment: A true story indeed as American tied up with Gol.
The 737 MAX
- Jonas – Bonus: EVERY prediction on the 737Max will be wrong.
Comment: This one isn’t really fair, but it is technically true. All the MAX predictions were about return to service coming earlier than it did or about doom and gloom.
JetBlue Grows Into Newark and Miami
- ktenorman – Official prediction: B6 gets additional gates at EWR and start a competitive EWR-SFO/LAX service, pushing AS off these routes.
- Keith – 2. B6 announces opening of MIA with routes to/from BOS, JFK, and SJU.
- Keith – 3. B6 announces more routes out of EWR due to acquiring more gates – transcon routes to SFO/LAX are announced.
Comment: These are the best predictions of the year as far as I’m concerned. Ok, so ktenorman, you only get partial credit since it hasn’t kicked Alaska off yet, and Keith you only got two of your three routes from Miami, but I’m giving full credit anyway. Nice work.
Marty Moves On
- Carl G – The fantastic Marty St. George will leave Norwegian after realizing that even he can’t fix it fast enough.
Comment: Marty did indeed leave Norwegian, but it’s not necessarily because he couldn’t fix it fast enough. It was always an interim gig. But now he’s at LATAM and Norwegian is on death’s door, so… good move there.
Daxing Rising
- Adeej_in_nz – 2) At least one US Airline will start moving flights to Beijing Daxing Airport.
Comment: Both American and Delta made the move… or they will make the move whenever they resume service.
The 747 Ends
- Michael – My main prediction for 2020 is a sad one: Boeing will end the 747 program.
Comment: The writing was already on the wall before the pandemic, and yes, Boeing did decide this year to end the program.
Air Italy’s Demise
- Keith – 8. Air Italy joins Airlines We Lost 2020
Comment: Again not a stretch, but sure enough, Air Italy met its demise this year before the pandemic even kicked into full swing. You can read more about that on Thursday when I publish Airlines We Lost 2020.
