Every airline in the world has a two-character designator code that represents the airline’s name identity across reservation systems, flight information displays, ticketing details, luggage tags, and all of the other places where showing an airline’s full name can be simplified by substituting that recognized designator code.

The development of those codes evolves as the early airline industry expands, and airline name codes that, in some cases, have been in use for eighty years, continue to be used in digital applications today.

Join me for the story of how airline name codes came about, their sometimes hidden meanings, and how they’ve developed, and been perceived, over generations.

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Have you ever found yourself looking out of a cabin window on an airliner, and wondered what was keeping you in - and the outside out - during your flight?

If you ask an aerospace engineer what their ideal airliner cabin window size and shape is, they might just tell you that the ideal airliner has no cabin windows. They’re a hassle to design and build, and they add to the maintenance and cleaning work required for an airliner.

But airlines know that a lot of their customers wouldn’t enjoy flying in a tube with no outside view, so windows in the passenger cabin have been a fixture since the earliest days of air travel.

With this Airline Time Machine podcast, let’s explore the role that airliner windows have, the many variations in window design over the years, and how a modern airliner window’s made. And, looking ahead, how might future airliner design change the windows we’ll find in airplanes.

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Delta Air Lines has a rich history in the air travel business, and this year is celebrating its one hundredth year of operations.

And while a lot of Delta’s story is focused on the southern United States where Delta was founded in Macon, Georgia - a state where Delta is headquartered today - there's another large Delta hub in the eastern half of the U.S. at Detroit.

Join me for the story of how an airline from Georgia finds itself with a big hub operation far to the north in Michigan, on the border with Canada, and how that hub is contributing to Delta’s business today.

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