For some of you, the name William “Bill” Swelbar is recognized. For others it will be new. Swelbar’s career in the industry began 8 months after the U.S. industry was deregulated in 1978. This is Swelbar’s second time around the blogoshphere and like the first time I will use this space to focus on the most talked-about issues in the airline business: the people running the airlines, the labor unions, government entities that oversee the industry, competition and finances in one of the most interesting industries in the world.  Maybe some golf and college basketball too.

In November 2020, William Swelbar formed The Swelbar-Zhong Consultancy – a commercial aviation economic analysis and research firm that specializes in assisting clients to understand how structural change(s) to the airline industry might impact their place in the system.  Swelbar-Zhong Consultancy (swelbar-zhongair.com)

Swelbar is often associated as being a Research Engineer in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s International Center for Air Transportation since 2006, where he is affiliated with the Global Airline Industry Program and Airline Industry Research Consortium.  The program became a COVID casualty in late 2022.

He also served as a member of the Board of Directors of Hawaiian (Airlines) Holdings, Inc. for 18 years; in 2016 was appointed to U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Working Group on Improving Air Service to Small Communities; and in January 2021, Swelbar spent two years as an external advisor to McKinsey & Company, Inc’s. Transport, Logistics, and Infrastructure Practice.

Swelbar is also a much sought-after speaker and has provided expert witness testimony before various tribunals and before the United States Congress regarding the economics of commercial air transport. Swelbar is published in the Journal of Air Transport Management and is a contributing author in a second edition textbook released in 2015 titled: The Airline Industry published by Wiley Press.