Once in a while, I come across an innovative airline which is lead by executives who love to think out of the box. Last year, it was AirAsia that left me stunned. Now, it’s airBaltic. During my recent trip to Athens, Greece, I met up with Tero Taskila, the Chief Commercial Officer of the airline who was previously leading Strategy at Gulf Air. I had been looking forward to interacting with him for some time now, and upon meeting him face to face, I can only confirm that he seems to be a very intelligent executive who’s not afraid to try new things to bring profitability to his airline. For example, traditionally a point-to-point carier, and now a “hybrid”, Latvia’s national airline airBaltic launched an Internet shop in December 2009 – airBalticOutlet.com. Customers can purchase leading branded goods for lower prices, with delivery on board an airplane. The products include perfumery, cosmetics, accessories, sweets, and airBaltic and Latvian souvenirs. How’s that for innovation? …

As promised at the start of the year, SimpliFlying will be bringing you more Guest Columns from leading aviation practitioners around the world. Our first guest article of the year is written by Oussama Salah, who is an aviation expert based in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Being a Jordanian who flies around the region a lot and works in the sector, he shares with us his predictions for Middle East carriers in 2010. —– The MENA region airlines bucked the global trend in 2009. It was the only region that had an increase in traffic and had the loss forecast dropped by 50% to half a billion. The region saw an increase in flights and in destinations. 2010 promises to be an exciting year for the region. Airlines in all segments are competing for a leading position. Emirates facing the crunch? Emirates remain the leader of the pack, with a brand that, by far has no rival not only in the region but globally. So far Emirates has shown a financial ability to finance its expansion without burdening Dubai. The problem Emirates might face is …

The beginning of a new year is a always a good time to get a 35,000 feet view of what you’re about and where you’re heading. And I think it should be done not just for personal matters, but professional too. SimpliFlying to me is as much a personal pursuit as a professional venture. I love planes. I love airlines. And I love the field of branding. SimpliFlying is an intersection of these passions. So, what is SimpliFlying about (according to you)? Often, it’s easy to put together a tag-cloud of what you write about and use it as a guide for what you’re about. However, I’ve been inspired by my ex-colleague, Daniel Tunkelang‘s article on measuring Twitter influence and I’ve tried something new. On Twitter, I’m part of almost 150 lists as of today. I looked at the titles of these list and generated a tag-cloud of that using Wordle. Isn’t it much more insightful to know what people think you are about, than what you think what you’re about? So the conclusion is …