RyanAir, an Irish Airline, is Europe’s most profitable airline, and amazingly currently offers free tickets to a quarter of its passengers! The company hopes to increase this number to over 50% by the end of the decade. HOW?? The airline has an incredibly lean cost structure, and puts a price on virtually everything except tickets, from baggage check-in to in-flight beverages and snacks to seat-back advertising space, and referral fees for related travel offerings via its popular website. As a result, last year Ryanair collected $265 million –15.6 percent of overall revenues– from sources other than ticket sales.

[thanks, Business 2.0]

EOS, a premium, single class airline that flies between New York and London launched 6 months ago, and continues to innovate. Yesterday, the company announced that it’s introducing curbside escorts to greet arriving passengers at curbside, and escort them to check-in and through expedited security, which means you can safely arrive only 45 minutes prior to your flight. The EOS fleet consists of Boeing 757 planes equipped with lie-flat seating for 48 people. In addition, the airline offers complimentary car service to and from London’s Standsted airport.

Finally, the WSJ recently profiled cutting edge technology being developed for hypersonic jets. Imagine a two hour flight from New York to Sydney, which translates to about 7,000 miles per hour, or nearly 10 times the speed of sound!

More information is available on the NASA website here.

[thanks, The Business Innovation Insider]