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United Airlines has applied for additional slots to operate flights between the USA and Tokyo’s Haneda International airport after competitor Delta Air Lines renounced its slots last week. Chicago-based United said on 25 September it wants to introduce daily service between its Houston hub and Haneda, and five-times-weekly flights between the Pacific island of Guam and Haneda. “Awarding these unused frequencies to United will ensure that these underutilised Haneda slot pairs are finally put to their highest and best use,” the airline says. “These awards will allow United to serve the travelling public with convenient, daily service between United’s key hub at Houston, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the US where demand for flights to Tokyo is among the largest in the US, as well as provide first-ever Guam–Haneda service, enhancing travel opportunities for tourism and business travellers flying to [and] from Guam,” United adds. Last week, Delta rescinded its rights to serve Haneda when it told the US Department of Transportation (DOT) in a filing that it would not begin to operate a planned daily flight from Portland, Oregon by the DOT’s deadline of 29 October. “It is a shame that Delta has known for weeks, if not months, that it has no intention of flying Portland–Haneda, with plenty of opportunities to clarify its intentions for the department and consumers, but chose instead to hold the slot pair until near the department’s deadline,” United says in its DOT filing. In early May, Atlanta-based Delta asked the US government to relax slot rules for flights between the USA and Tokyo Haneda due to a “fundamentally changed” demand environment following the Covid-19 pandemic. Delta asked the agency to grant US carriers authority to “use up to two of their slots to serve Haneda from” any US airport, its 1 May filing said. Currently, the DOT mandates from which cities US airlines must serve Haneda.<br/>

Air Canada has canceled an order with Boeing Co. for two factory-built 777-300 freighters, opting to pump the brakes on the rapid expansion of its new freighter fleet amid an 18-month recession in airfreight that has sharply slashed the company’s cargo revenue. Air Canada said Monday it will no longer take delivery of the 777 cargo jets in 2024. The disclosure was part of an announcement that Air Canada has ordered 18 Boeing 787-10 passenger aircraft. Air Canada said it decided to convert the order for freighters to 787s instead. No reason was given for the change of heart with the freighters. Air Canada’s press office did not respond to a query about the status of the 777 freighter deal. But the cancellation demonstrates how difficult conditions in the logistics sector are impacting operators and forcing changes in investment plans. It also reflects the strong recovery in international air travel that is expected to continue. Air Canada said the 787-10s will be used to replace less efficient widebody aircraft, with the first deliveries expected in Q4 2025. Air Canada currently operates 30 787-9 and eight 787-8 versions of the Dreamliner, with two more 787-9 aircraft scheduled for delivery from a previous order. The 787-10 is the largest model of the Dreamliner family; it can carry more than 330 customers depending on the seat configuration and has 6,187 cubic feet of cargo volume. Air Canada Cargo currently operates six medium widebody freighters. Since launching a dedicated cargo airline in January 2022, Air Canada has deployed four used Boeing 767-300 passenger jets retrofitted to carry cargo containers and in May received two production 767-300 freighters directly from Boeing. A conversion house is expected to deliver one more 767-300 by the end of the year. Three more aircraft are scheduled to be converted next year, bringing the fleet to 10 aircraft by the end of 2024.<br/>

Germany’s biggest airline would consume half of the country’s entire electricity production to switch its fleet to green fuels like e-kerosene, according to Deutsche Lufthansa, underscoring the challenge in reducing emissions from air transport. While synthetic fuels manufactured using renewable energy provided the best future path to decarbonize aviation, there is unlikely to be sufficient green electricity in Germany to generate them, Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr on Monday. “We would need around half of Germany’s electricity to create enough of the fuels,” Spohr said at an aviation conference in Hamburg. “I don’t think Mr. Habeck is going to give me that,” Spohr said, referring to Germany’s Economy and Energy Minister, Robert Habeck. The aviation industry is working to create a market for a carbon-neutral version of the kerosene that powers most modern aircraft. Green kerosene is derived from water and actually pulls carbon dioxide out of the air during creation. The process, which requires huge amounts of electricity generated from renewable resources to ensure carbon neutrality, fractures water into oxygen and hydrogen, which is then combined with carbon. So-called synthetic fuels are seen by aviation executives like Spohr as the only technically viable way for the time being to decarbonize air travel. While battery-electric vehicles work for road travel, cells lack the energy density for the foreseeable future to lift a commercial planeload of passengers and cargo into the sky. <br/>

Austrian Airlines was found guilty of misleading climate-conscious travelers by suggesting its flights were sustainable, even though they were largely powered by fossil fuels. An Austrian consumer-protection association filed the suit against the Lufthansa AG’s subsidiary earlier this year over advertisements featuring sustainable aviation fuel. The airline claimed flights to an art show in the Italian port of Venice would be fueled with 100% sustainable fuel when, in fact, only 5% derived from renewable resources, according to a copy of the decision posted by Austrian Airlines on its X account. The ruling by a commercial court outside of Vienna was made just as European Union officials crafted new regulations to ban misleading environmental claims made by companies on their products, or so-called greenwashing. “It isn’t technically possible at present to operate carbon dioxide-neutral flights with 100% sustainable aviation fuel,” the Association of Consumer Information’s lawyer, Barbara Bauer, said in a statement. Austrian Airlines was required to post a copy of the court verdict on its website and social media account where the original advertisement appeared, as well as pay for the consumer-protection association’s legal counsel. “It follows from the ruling that Austrian Airlines should have provided clearer information,” the company said in an emailed statement. “Austrian Airlines will take the ruling into account in current and future advertising statements.”<br/>