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Southwest Airlines is nearing a sale-leaseback deal for 36 of its Boeing Co. planes sooner than expected, an early sign of progress in the carrier’s push to extract additional financial benefits from its aircraft. The planned transaction to turn those older 737-800 jets into cash was “way over subscribed” and could wrap up this month, Chief Executive Officer Bob Jordan said in an interview Wednesday. The company last week said it anticipated the initial pact in a broader fleet monetization plan to conclude in next year’s first quarter. Closing a deal would mark the first step in Southwest’s effort to leverage additional value from its fleet of more than 800 Boeing 737 jets and the nearly 700 planes it has on order. It’s part of the sweeping changes taking shape at the Dallas-based carrier to improve investor returns that have lagged peers in recent years, such as by offering assigned seating and premium fares with more leg room. The fleet transactions aim to capitalize on aircraft demand and pricing that have soared as Boeing and Airbus SE faced production challenges that have limited the supply of new jetliners. “The aircraft are worth a lot because you can’t get aircraft, and we have access to an awful lot of them,” Jordan said. “The strategy is a really important one, an important part of our plan.” Sale-leaseback deals allow the carrier to sell some of its mid-life 737-800 jets to a lessor and then lease them back for a fixed time period. In Southwest’s case, the term would be three years, COO Andrew Watterson said. <br/>

JetBlue Airways plans to add domestic first-class seats in 2026 on airplanes that don’t have its top-tier Mint class, the latest initiative to win over higher-paying customers and get back to profitability. All of JetBlue’s Airbus aircraft without Mint, the airline’s lie-flat seats, will have two or three rows of domestic first-class seats, Marty St. George, JetBlue’s president, said in a note to employees. “Since launching Mint over a decade ago, we’ve explored the idea of expanding a version of it across the fleet, often playfully calling it ‘mini-Mint’ or ‘junior Mint,’” St. George said. He said Mint “can’t be duplicated on shorter flights,” so the carrier had to come up with a solution for passengers willing to pay for more space on shorter flights. “We’re keeping the rest of our ideas under wraps for now while we prepare for a 2026 launch. Let’s keep our competitors guessing,” St. George wrote. St. George, JetBlue’s former commercial chief, came back to the New York-based airline earlier this year to help new CEO Joanna Geraghty return JetBlue to profitability and cut costs. The airline is focusing more on its core markets in Florida and the Northeast and deferring some of its Airbus aircraft.<br/>

EasyJet is set to boost its presence at Milan Linate and Rome Fiumicino airports, benefiting from a package of remedies the European Union required to approve a tie-up between Lufthansa and ITA Airways. Starting from March, easyJet will base five additional planes at Linate and three at Fiumicino, taking its country total to 38 and making Italy its second largest market after Britain, the company said during a news conference in Milan. The new routes will connect Linate with Vienna, Brussels and Frankfurt. Routes to Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich and Brussels will be available from Fiumicino. The European Commission last month approved remedies proposed for Lufthansa's acquisition of a 41% stake in state-owned ITA for E325m, a deal designed to boost the German carrier's presence in Italy. Lufthansa and the Italian government had to agree on commitments to safeguard competition, including ceding slots at Linate so that easyJet could start short-haul flights from Rome and Milan to certain airports in Central Europe. EasyJet's Italy country manager Lorenzo Lagorio said his company still wanted to grow in Malpensa, Milan's main airport. "Malpensa is and remains easyJet's main base and hub in Italy where we have 22 aircraft based. We will have 6.3m seats from next summer and Malpensa remains the airport where we want to continue to grow," he said.<br/>

Nigerian investigators have opened an inquiry after a Boeing 737-400 freighter suffered a runway excursion while landing at Abuja. The twinjet – operated by Allied Air – had been arriving from Lagos at around 10:06 on 11 December. It skidded off the right-hand side of runway 22 and came to rest in a grass verge. None of the crew members on board the jet was injured, says the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau. It identifies the airframe as 5N-JRT, a 31-year old jet originally operated by Air Berlin and subsequently by carriers including Ukraine International Airlines. The aircraft was fitted with CFM International CFM56 engines. Meteorological data from Abuja at the time of the occurrence indicates good visibility and no adverse weather, with a slight crosswind from the left.<br/>

Kuwaiti budget carrier Jazeera Airways is to purchase six older Airbus A320s which the airline currently operates on lease. Jazeera’s board states that it will fund the purchase from its own resources as well as loans from local banks. It values the transaction at KD55.57m ($180.6m). Jazeera CE Barathan Pasupathi, speaking during a third-quarter briefing in November, said the carrier had a fleet of 24 aircraft with another 26 on order – comprising 18 A320neos and eight A321neos. These new aircraft are set to be delivered from 2026. “We are pretty stable with the 24 aircraft in the network,” he said. “But we would like to put more seats in the market.” Pasupathi said the carrier wanted to expand the number of seats offered next year. “Given the growth trajectory we’ve seen over the last two years and the growth we expect next year, we are confident that Jazeera could put in at least another 10% of additional seat capacity in the market,” he said. <br/>

Air Arabia, the Middle East and North Africa’s first and largest low-cost carrier (LCC) operator, has announced the resumption of its direct flights from Sharjah (UAE) to Beirut (Lebanon). The reinstated service underscores Air Arabia's commitment to offering accessible and convenient travel options to its passengers, the airline said. Starting December 18, Air Arabia will operate daily non-stop flights between Sharjah International Airport and Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport. Air Arabia operates a modern fleet of 79 Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft, the most modern and best-selling single aisle aircraft in the world. Offering passengers, a value-added onboard experience, the aircraft is equipped with ‘SkyTime’, a free in-flight streaming, and ‘SkyCafe’ an onboard catering service at affordable prices. In addition, Air Arabia offers ‘Air Rewards’ an innovative and generous loyalty program through which passengers can earn, transfer, and spend points<br/>