An early morning flight from Delta Air Lines leaves SFO.

In the latest air travel news, the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a public warning about a sophisticated criminal group that is hacking into the systems of major airlines; a research firm specializing in measurements of Wi-Fi performance speeds finds that a new provider of in-flight Wi-Fi is allowing much faster downloads than its competitors; the Supreme Court rejects American Airlines’ effort to reconsider the lower courts’ rejection of its Northeast Alliance with JetBlue; Delta adds another route from San Jose Mineta; United introduces a new transpacific destination; some transatlantic carriers are extending their summer seasonal routes into the winter, while others are cutting some winter flights; another carrier joins American Airlines’ global Oneworld alliance. 

Airline passengers now have one more thing to worry about: the security of their personal information. The FBI issued a warning on social media that a sophisticated group of hackers is targeting the airline industry, putting its data — including customer information — at risk. The FBI said the hackers, known as Scattered Spider, use “social engineering techniques” like impersonating employees or contractors to convince the target company’s IT help desks to grant them access to internal systems. “These techniques frequently involve methods to bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA), such as convincing help desk services to add unauthorized MFA devices to compromised accounts,” the FBI said. “They target large corporations and their third-party IT providers, which means anyone in the airline ecosystem, including trusted vendors and contractors, could be at risk.” Once they gain access, “Scattered Spider actors steal sensitive data for extortion and often deploy ransomware.” 

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The FBI warning was issued as airlines were hit by a series of cyberattacks in recent days, although it’s unclear if the attacks could be traced to the Scattered Spider hackers.

A Hawaiian Airlines Airbus A320 departs from Harry Reid International Airport on March 15, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In mid-June, Canada’s WestJet reported a cybersecurity incident involving its internal systems and its mobile app, “which has restricted access for several users.” The airline stressed that its operations were not affected and that it immediately called in IT experts and law enforcement to protect company and passenger data. In its most recent update a week later, WestJet said it was still working to determine what kind of data may have been impacted by the hack.

Then, Hawaiian Airlines said last week it was “addressing a cybersecurity event that has affected some of our IT systems,” but it gave no details about the incident or what kind of data was accessed. Hawaiian said its flight operations were not impacted, and that it was working with “the appropriate authorities and experts to assist in our investigation and remediation efforts.”

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On July 2, Qantas announced that it

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