June Dispatches

Oomph. Oomph. Oomph goes the music to dancing strobe lights in one of Rio de Janeiro’s oceanside highway tunnels. No, this was not the latest Carnival party but the Maratona do Rio. A 26.2 mile one-way run through the iconic beaches, mountains and vistas of the Brazilian metropolis. In town for the IATA annual meeting, the largest annual confab of global airline leaders, on marathon weekend with the race passing steps from my hotel I could not resist jumping in for a few miles — and what a few miles they were. The energy was electric as thousands of runners pounded the paved and tiled Rio pavement. The best part? Disco tunnel aside, it was undoubtedly the views of Sugarloaf from that cliffside road that, for one day a year, is the sole domain of runners.

It was the busiest times, it was the quietest times. That about sums up the IATA annual meeting in Rio hosted by LATAM Airlines this year where meetings were plentiful but no dominant news story emerged. Fuel prices are up, demand is robust, airlines adjusting but they could really use a reliable supply of planes and engines. That said, some news did come out: Boeing has (finally) moved into the last significant certification phase of the 777-9; Southwest and ANA are confident their long-delayed aircraft will debut in 2027; American plans a new intercontinental destination; WestJet is modernizing its fleet; and United CEO Scott Kirby thinks this round of consolidation is over (he is not interested in JetBlue) but new partnerships are still very much possible. (FlightGlobal)

Porter Airlines, home of Canada’s favorite spokescritter, has nearly tripled in size in the last three years. The growth, fueled by the arrival of dozens of new Embraer E-Jets, raises some concerns — the history of rapid airline growth being littered with failures. Michael Deluce, the airline’s CEO, says the airline is “seeing incredible RASM, load factor and average fare growth," and experts generally respect the airline’s moves. (TPG)

Plus, United plans a new D.C.-themed lounge at Dulles; Spirit can auction its LaGuardia slots despite Port Authority opposition a bankruptcy judge ruled; Southwest is weeks away from debuting Starlink; Allegiant’s plans with Sun Country; and Qatar Airways will return to Philadelphia. (TPG)

Is the U.S. airline industry at carrying capacity? Excellent long-form analysis from Jon Ostrower in The Air Current.

Denver International Airport has a circulation problem. The automated train that connects the concourses and terminal broke down 262 times in 2024 and 2025 and, unless you’re in Concourse A, there is no alternative. Finally a fix: the airport plans to repurpose an existing baggage tunnel as a pedestrian walkway by 2029 linking concourses A and B, and B and C. As for the design, outgoing airport CEO Phil Washington gets it: “We it to be signature. We want it to be Colorado-centric. We want these tunnels to be aesthetically beautiful.”

Norse Atlantic’s heavy-reliance on AI chatbots for customer service is a ripe opportunity for scammers. Travelers beware.

I was initially with William O’Connor on the new design for New York Penn Station. But as more renderings have come out — and the gold bling has faded to a more sophisticated bronze hue — I don’t dislike the designs for Penn. Should Madison Square Garden move? Absolutely but the architects appear near something that, in the words of Curbed architecture critic Justin Davidson, could “at long last, look like a train station from blocks away, mirror the civic heft of the Farley Post Office Building across Eighth Avenue, and be a pleasure to hustle through."

“Italo wants its new service to link 18 cities in Germany … It plans to invest €3.6bn in the venture … [and] unlike the fiery red carriages it uses in Italy, those deployed in Germany will be a sensibly conservative blue.” Exciting prospect for open railway access in Germany.

RIP the New York Subway orange bucket seats.

One of the most-ridden cycling routes in the U.S. is under threat.

Jonas Vingegaard’s win at the Giro this week lifts him into a select club of champions that have recorded victories in the tours of Italy, France and Spain. And if it wasn’t for his competitor Tadej Pogacar, he would be “the outstanding rider of his generation,” wrote Jeremy Whittle for The Guardian. (5K2GO with Jeremy Whittle)

“Cities have largely lost the power to say yes to construction … Every decision can be appealed, every complaint must be heard, every objection weighed,” wrote Binyamin Appelbaum in a New York Times editorial. Most North American cities should follow suit with their own Senakw, or several Senakws.

I discussed the IATA annual meeting on the FlightGlobal Focus podcast.

“I think the primary job of an architect is taking thigns that are really, really complex and making it simple,” Tomas Stokke, founding director of Haptic Architects who has worked on terminals in Istanbul, Noida and Athens, said on Monocle’s The Urbanist podcast.

The story of the Wright sister who was integral to her brothers’ famous flight at Kitty Hawk.

I’m really enjoying the Ian Coss’s new series, the Highway Teardown Tour, from WGBH. It highlights the complex problem of what to do with America’s many aging urban highways. From the BQE triple cantilever, to the I-81 viaduct through Syracuse, the Inner Loop in Rochester, the I-35 cap in Austin and the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle.