Airlines

An upcoming tria could see passengers sail through the boarding process without needing to break out their passports, or their paper or digital boarding passes. JetBlue is to use facial recognition technology to validate passenger identities at the departure gate.

​If you don't like hitting turbulence when you're flying (and who does?), then you're not going to like the conclusions of a study recently conducted at the University of Reading. If its supercomputer simulations are anything to go by, climate change will cause a major increase in severe turbulence.

​Starting next year, there will an efficient new airliner entering commercial service – the Boeing 737 MAX 9. The first such aircraft was officially debuted this Tuesday, when it was rolled out in front of employees at the Boeing plant in Renton, Washington.

A new study claims that airlines could significantly reduce their impact on the climate through minor changes to some flight routes. Although the proposed changes would only increase airline operating costs by around 1 percent, their impact on the climate could be reduced by up to 10 percent.

Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics is creating what may be a solution to the dry air of airliner cabins, in the form of personal rings of moist air for each passenger.​

Bombardier has handed the first of its new CS100 aircraft over to Swiss International Airlines. The narrow-body, twin-engine, medium-range jet airliner is designed to hold between 100 and 150 passengers and is due to enter service later this week.

Cathay Pacific has taken delivery of its first A350 aircraft in Hong Kong and there are a number of features in the cabin that will make for a comfortable passenger flying experience. Among them are supportive headrests, space for mobile devices and internet access.

Without much in the way of fanfare, United Airlines began flying regularly scheduled flights using biofuels earlier this month. It's the first instance of a US airline putting commercial-scale volumes of biofuel into passenger-carrying planes on an ongoing basis.

Regular business flyers will know that planning trips is time-consuming, and that prices can fluctuate significantly. US startup OneGo, however, is out to change all that. It allows customers to pay a fixed monthly fee for unlimited flights on major airlines​.​

If a recently announced consortium of scientists and aviation companies are successful, you could one day be flying in jets powered by the remains of decay – otherwise known as biofuel from forest-industry waste.

A recently-granted Airbus pantent explores the creation of a new modular aircraft that would see detachable passenger cabins slot into a gap in an aeroplane's fuselage. The concept has the potential to revolutionize air travel, while providing significant savings for airlines.

NASA is looking to cut commercial flight times and carbon emissions with software for air carriers that monitors conditions like weather and flight paths to suggest faster routes. Virgin America and Alaska Airlines will put the system through its paces over the next three years. ​