Top US airlines have restored most of their capacity in the Asia Pacific four years after the pandemic began, but empty seats on routes to Asia are hurting margins while a full return of flights between the US and China remains far off. "As we bring it all back, our goal is to make sure that the Asia Pacific entity produces margins that are similar to that across the rest of our global network," said United Airlines CCO Andrew Nocella in an earnings call this week. "We're particularly bullish about what Asia looks like going forward," he said. Robust 2023 Q4 earnings for the major US international carriers -- Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, and American Airlines -- capped another strong year for the travel industry that continues to see positive momentum coming out of the post-pandemic travel boom. American Airlines reported a $19m profit for Q4 Thursday. That figure is down significantly from a year earlier due to costs from a new labor agreement, but beat Wall Street expectations. Full-year profit came to $822m on record revenue of $53b. Shares in American went up nearly 10% on the day at market close. United's profit was down in Q4 while revenue was up 10%, and full-year profit increased more than threefold to $2.6b, according to earnings posted Monday. United stock leapt following the results and is up over 7% in the past week.<br/>
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A Copa Airlines jet became the first 737 MAX 9 to return to service on Thursday, after 171 Boeing MAX 9s were grounded this month in the wake of an accident involving a mid-air blowout on an Alaska Airlines plane. A Copa spokesperson confirmed that it had returned the aircraft to service. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday approved an inspection process that will allow grounded MAX 9s to return to service. Copa follows FAA directives. The plane took off from Panama City at 12:11 p.m. local time on Thursday en route for Sao Paulo, Brazil, according to FlightRadar24. Copa said earlier it had received authorization for its 21 grounded MAX 9s to undergo inspections and would reinstate flights that had previously been canceled on Thursday.<br/>