German Carrier, Air Berlin, announced further flight cancellations in mid September, stating that over 200 of its pilots had reported sick. The flight cancellations affect both its domestic and international route networks. The union representing the airline’s pilots, Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), claims that the mass pilot outage is not a collective or concerted effort and instead recommended that staff fulfil their contractual and occupational obligations. The airline had previously sustained a number of years of severe losses, which had resulted in cost cutting measures.

State carrier, South African Airways (SAA), announced in late September that in response to the poor financial performance of the carrier, the capacity of its mainline operations will be decreased over the coming months. As a result, the airline will reportedly return at least five of its wide body aircraft to their lessors, whilst an additional four narrow body aircraft will be offloaded to other carriers. This fleet downsize will result in the cessation of over 170 weekly flights with a number of other routes being transferred to low cost feeder airline, South Africa Airlink.

The US Department of Transportation (DOT) announced in early October that a number of Essential Air Services Routes (EAS), a program which provides air transport to remote regions throughout North America, will be removed from eligibility due to the lack of regular passengers. The DOT stated that regions require at least 10 daily passengers to continue to receive cost subsidies. Destinations such as Muscle Shoals, Salina, Hagerstown, Pendleton and Vernal have all been affected as a result. The communities of these towns have been given 20 days to lodge objections or petitions regarding the decision.