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Air Canada has signed an agreement with Neste to purchase 77.6m litres (20.5m U.S. gallons) of Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel as it continues to pursue its climate plans and aspirations. Air Canada’s President and CEO, Michael Rousseau said: “Air Canada is actively pursuing efforts to mitigate its greenhouse gas emissions and SAF is a critical component of our multifaceted approach to reducing our impact on the environment and promoting environmental sustainability in our operations. This SAF purchase from Neste contributes significantly to our target of procuring SAF for one per cent of our estimated jet fuel use in 2025. While Air Canada and the Canadian aviation industry will continue to depend on imported SAF, SAF must also become available at scale in Canada to achieve our long-term aspirational goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This is why we at Air Canada are asking federal and provincial governments to play a role and support the development of a competitive SAF industry and production market in Canada.” Neste, one of the world’s leading producers of SAF, will deliver the neat SAF purchased in a blended form to the Vancouver marine terminal starting next month, with further shipments throughout 2025.<br/>

Getting to destinations in the U.S., Europe and North Africa is about to get easier, as Air Canada announced it will be increasing flights to a number of new destinations this summer. Starting in May 2025, the airline will begin increasing capacity seasonally from airports in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver. Mark Galardo, Air Canada executive vice-president of revenue and network planning, says by leveraging their hubs in cities like Toronto and Montreal, Air Canada “will offer more than 100,000 weekly seats to 30 destinations across Europe and North Africa” next summer. The airline will be increasing its services in several European and North African destinations, with up to three daily flights to Rome, Italy and Athens, Greece, up to four weekly flights between Toronto and Stockholm, Sweden, in additions to daily flights to Madrid, Spain, Paris, France and Casablanca, Morroco. Across the border, the airline has plans to add flights to U.S. cities like Indianapolis, Boston, Tampa, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver and Nashville among others. Flights will depart from the Toronto and Montreal airports.<br/>

Eleven people were injured when a Lufthansa flight from Buenos Aires to Frankfurt hit severe turbulence while travelling over the Atlantic, the airline said on Tuesday. "Unfortunately, five passengers and six crew members suffered mostly minor injuries," a Lufthansa spokesperson told Reuters in an email, confirming a report by the DPA news agency. "The safety of the flight was not in jeopardy at any time," the spokesperson added. The injured received medical treatment immediately after the aircraft landed safely at its planned destination on Tuesday at 10:53 am (0953 GMT), according to the airline. The Boeing 747-8 had been carrying 329 passengers and 19 crew members. The turbulence was brief and occurred in an intertropical convergence zone, the company said. In May, a passenger died of a suspected heart attack and 30 were injured when a Singapore Airlines passenger plane was severely jolted by an air pocket over the Irrawaddy Basin in Myanmar.<br/>

Italy’s finance ministry has sent details to the European Commission of the remedies package supporting Lufthansa’s planned acquisition of a 41% stake in national carrier ITA Airways. Approval of the remedies would mark the last step in securing clearance for the acquisition, a deal for which was agreed in May 2023, and comes amid recent reports of last-minute haggling between Lufthansa and Italy over the price for ITA. ”The expected economic conditions have not undergone changes compared to the agreement already signed,” says the Italian Ministry of Finance, noting that full details of the agreements including the corrective competition measures have been sent to the Commission. ”The final approval of the European Commission is awaited with confidence to proceed with the closing of the operation.” Commission regulators in early July finally gave their conditional approval to the deal after Lufthansa and ITA committed to a number of remedy actions to satisfy competition concerns. These relate to the impact of the merger on some short- and long-haul routes – most notably from Milan Linate – on certain Italian routes to central Europe, and on transatlantic flights.<br/>

Ethiopian Airlines and the South Sudanese government have included plans to establish a national carrier for South Sudan, moving forward with a 2023 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). This new collaboration will boost South Sudan’s air connectivity, economic integration and job creation helping South Sudan move forward in its post-conflict development. Additionally, the official agreement took place on November 7, 2024, with Ethiopian Ambassador Nabil Mahdi and South Sudan’s Transport Minister Madut Biar. This partnership gives Ethiopian Airlines a management deal to establish and operate the Vision 2025 plan towards long-sought flights.<br/>

The merger deal between Korean Air and Asiana Airlines, Korea's two full-fledged carriers, is expected to clear a major regulatory hurdle after likely receiving a final nod from the European Union this month, according to industry sources Tuesday. The European Commission (EC), the EU's executive body, is expected to make a final decision on whether to approve the 1.8t-won ($1.28b) merger deal after monitoring operational stability of four European routes that Korean Air transferred to low-cost carrier (LCC) T'way Air. Korean Air has so far won approval from 12 countries and regions, and is waiting for final approval from the EU and the United States. Many industry watchers expect the EC, which conditionally approved the deal in February, to give its final approval within the month. The route transfer was part of remedial measures Korean Air offered to carry out to receive conditional approval from the EC for the merger in February. The EC is currently reviewing whether T'way Air can operate these four routes reliably and establish healthy competition with Korean Air.<br/>

Thai Airways International said its Rolls-Royce Holdings engines are spending more time than ever undergoing maintenance checks, adding to a chorus of criticism over the power units. CEO Chai Eamsiri said the engines powering its Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner aircraft are spending as long as 120 days undergoing checks, significantly longer than the 90-day wait when the British manufacturer previously encountered similar delays. “We send it for a shop visit and it doesn’t come back,” he said at an annual meeting of Asian airlines in Brunei on Tuesday. “It used to be 90 days. Now it’s longer, toward 120 days.” Rolls-Royce blamed industry-wide supply chain constraints for the delays. The company is working to prioritize resources needed to reduce the impact on airlines, a spokesperson said. Thai Airways’ comments on the increased wait times shed more light on the growing discontent among Rolls-Royce customers. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. have suspended several routes over the past month due to a shortage of aircraft caused by the backlog.<br/>

Thai Airways remained profitable in the third quarter as revenues continued to increase on the back of traffic growth. The Star Alliance carrier’s operating profit before one-off items and finance costs fell 7% to Bt7.2b ($209m) – and by 41% to Bt2.4b after finance costs are included. Thai Airways operating revenues climbed 24% to Bt45.8b for the three months ending 30 September, as revenues from passenger and cargo both increased. Passenger numbers rose a fifth to 3.9m during the quarter. Thai boosted passenger traffic 24% for the quarter but was slightly short of the 26% of capacity added over the same period. Thai revenues however were outpaced by a 32% increase in costs, This was largely driven by a rise in non-fuel operating expenses, especially in MRO-related costs. Thai notes the sharp increase (nearly two-fold year on year) stems from an addition of nine more aircraft. Thai though did report a significant jump in its net profit - up about eight-fold to Bt12.5b. This was due mainly to gains from foreign currency exchange and debt restructuring. <br/>

Thai Airways International will retrofit 14 Boeing 777-300ERs with new cabin products, including adding premium economy seating. Airline chief Chai Eamsiri says the national carrier has “confirmed our vendors and OEMs” for the new products, but has not officially launched them to market. He adds that the 777s will have new in-flight entertainment systems and seats across all classes. He was speaking to FlightGlobal on the sidelines of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) Assembly of Presidents in Brunei. Thai Airways has 17 777-300ERs, of which three are younger jets that it took delivery of in 2022. The 14 older jets, which are between nine and 14 years old, are configured in a two-class layout with 348 seats. No firm timeline was disclosed for the retrofit, but Chai says the new products “will be the same” as the airline will install on 30 Boeing 787-9s it has on order. Chai says there are no immediate plans for a cabin refresh of the airline’s other widebodies. He notes the airline’s A350s, for example, are younger than the 777s, and would need a cabin refresh “a few years later”. “We still have some time…and even we decided today, we are unable to get the slots we want [for the retrofit of the A350s],” Chai adds, pointing to ongoing supply chain delays in the aerospace sector. <br/>

People travelling between Singapore and three Indonesian destinations in 2025 can book flights with Singapore Airlines and Garuda Indonesia in a single itinerary, in a tie-up between the two carriers. This would give travellers more options when travelling to Bali, Jakarta and Surabaya from Singapore from the first quarter of 2025, when the joint fare products are introduced. For example, a check on the SIA website shows six daily flights between Singapore and Bali from Nov 18 to 24, while Garuda has at least nine daily flights during the same period, according to a check on the Indonesian carrier’s website. The airlines announced the joint fare products in a joint statement on Nov 12, in which they also publicised an upcoming increase in the number of flights between Singapore and Jakarta across both airlines. SIA will operate eight flights to the Indonesian capital from Nov 22, up from six now. Garuda will increase its flights from four to six between the two cities from Dec 1. Both airlines will extend their codeshare arrangement to include these new services.<br/>