The editorial operations ended at FlyerTalk since its second incarnation was launched with what was then known as The Gate 14 years, two months, and eleven days ago.
Editorial Operations Ended at FlyerTalk
As I first mentioned in this article that was published on Friday, August 1, 2014, View From The Wing and The Gate were the only weblogs on FlyerTalk at one point. Before The Gate was founded, My Point by Joe Turner and The Miles Files by Randy Petersen shared space at blogs@flyertalk.com with View From The Wing by Gary Leff, which has its own weird and unique history as told by Gary.
The Gate was one of the original weblogs at BoardingArea when it was launched in 2008. More specifically, the first time an article of The Gate was posted at BoardingArea was on Thursday, December 27, 2007 with this short article. It eventually became one of the top four weblogs at BoardingArea, according to Randy Petersen…
…but then, Randy Petersen announced in an “open letter” of sorts in November of 2010 that he was leaving FlyerTalk. The purpose of The Gate was to highlight discussions posted on FlyerTalk; yet it resided at BoardingArea. With Randy Petersen leaving FlyerTalk, the future for The Gate was uncertain.
After some discussions between Randy Petersen and Internet Brands — the company which purchased FlyerTalk in 2007 — The Gate officially moved back to its original home on FlyerTalk on Wednesday, May 4, 2011. That meant that I was the sole writer for editorial content on FlyerTalk at that time before additional writers were brought on board.
FlyerTalk has had numerous writers for editorial content over those years — nine of them alone have co-written articles with me at The Gate — and eleven years ago, Joe Cortez started writing articles for FlyerTalk prior to being named its managing editor while also eventually becoming the sole writer for FlyerTalk.
Internet Brands ended the editorial operations of FlyerTalk effective as of Tuesday, July 15, 2025 at 12:00 noon Pacific Daylight Time — and Joe Cortez figuratively turned out the lights, as he wrote in his own words at his LinkedIn account:
“In my 11 years with FlyerTalk, I did more than I ever imagined that I could. A young Chicano boy from dirt poor roots traveled the world and back with incredible partners, worked on stories with The White House, and even attended lATA AGMs in Qatar and the UAE. All the while, I asked questions and told stories that celebrated and illustrated the state of modern aviation.
“I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to my mentor and friend, editor Jeremy T. for being there through every difficult day, breaking news evening, and catching tears when words weren’t enough. I’d also like to thank Randy Petersen for his work, because without him, there would be no FlyerTalk — and to an extension, none of my dreams.
“My work isn’t over, but this chapter has closed. And now, it’s time to stop, reflect, and continue to work on myself and healing my broken heart and mind.”
Why Internet Brands decided to shut down the editorial operations of FlyerTalk when it did was not publicly disclosed or revealed; but at least five factors that have adversely affected other weblogs and other entities in the media include — but are not limited to:
- Substantially adverse changes in algorithms which ultimately determines how content is searched and found that were implemented by Google over the past year or so. I explain this in greater detail in this article which celebrated 18 years of The Gate With Brian Cohen from Sunday, August 18, 2024.
- Speaking of Google — which is the leading search engine — its artificial intelligence capabilities prioritizes the summarizes to answers to questions and inquiries over the linking to actual articles and other content, which has resulted in a decline in traffic to actual content from people who are searching for information on Google. Less traffic means fewer views, which leads to decreased revenue.
- People are increasingly getting their news and information from social media channels and eschewing magazines, newspapers, television, radio, and other more traditional platforms — which increasingly includes weblogs — and means that fewer people are reading articles.
- Weblogs — especially those which have been acquired by large corporations and companies whose primary business is venture capital — and frequent travel communities are focused more than ever on maximizing revenue as their main goal. As mentioned earlier in this article, WebFlyer — which was one of the companies that was created by Randy Petersen — sold FlyerTalk to Internet Brands, which itself was acquired by a private equity firm called Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.
- Although it has its benefits — and despite obvious errors that are currently inherent — the technology associated with artificial intelligence in general is slowly eroding the personal touch and experience that writers, photographers, and illustrators added to every article, which in turn has effectively reduced or eliminated the need for them to contribute to stories. Simply request a software application program that uses artificial intelligence to “write” an article and include some images; and voila! Content is quickly created by one person — albeit often unchecked for accuracy, errors, or validity. In a growing number of cases, artificial intelligence is being used to outright deliberately scam people with increasingly realistic images and false information.
Final Boarding Call
I have met Joe Cortez several times. His personality is down to earth; he seems to be passionate about travel; and he is gracious and thankful for every opportunity that comes his way. I wish him all the best on his next chapter in travel and writing; and I look forward to seeing him in person again in the near future…
…but to me — in addition to the aforementioned factors — this news represents yet another death knell in what was once a thriving frequent flier community, which has substantially eroded over the past ten years or so due to numerous reasons. People seem to want to call what we do a hobby or a game — I find both of those terms rather cringeworthy — and everybody seems solely focused on either increasing revenues and profits; selfishly taking advantage of the system to the point of doing questionable actions at the expense of others; or maximizing views and search engine optimization. Despite still serving an important purpose to frequent travelers, even FlyerTalk itself resembles a shell of what it once was: a place where people genuinely helped each other get the most out of travel, miles, and points as a community.
The ceasing of editorial operations at FlyerTalk is bittersweet to me — the articles that used to be at the home “page” are now gone — but like everything else, life continues on…
Photograph ©2022 by Brian Cohen.
