The US Federal Aviation Administration is extending a slot-usage waiver at airports in the New York city area through the end of the summer 2025 scheduling season due to continued air traffic control staffing shortages. The extension affects John F. Kennedy International, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty International airports. The FAA is also extending flexibility for impacted flights operating between Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and New York airports. The agency says air traffic controller hiring is one of its "top priorities" and that it is "on track" to hire 1,800 controllers in 2024, which it says is 300 more than in 2023. "Currently, there are not enough certified controllers at N90 to allow the FAA to handle normal traffic levels," it says, referring to the designator for the air traffic control facility in Westbury on New York's Long Island. It adds that it plans for the Philadelphia Air Traffic Control Tower/TRACON to take over the Newark airspace "to improve efficiency and safety in this region". "The FAA is receptive to carriers' requests for slot usage flexibility and the agency expects that airlines will use this opportunity to operate larger aircraft, transporting more passengers," says the agency. "This, in turn, will require sufficient ground crews to service the larger aircraft and ensure passengers are fully informed about any possible disruptions." The slot-usage waiver allows carriers to reduce schedules at the New York airports by 10% without penalties for non-use of slots or previously approved operating times. The FAA had previously extended the slot-usage waiver through October 2024.

South African Airways has reached a settlement with the US Department of Transportation, accepting a $300,000 civil penalty over delayed refunding of Covid-era tickets. The carrier says the penalty will be paid to the US Treasury in tranches over a period of 540 days from the consent order's issuance date. In May 2021, the US Department of Transportation's Office of Aviation Consumer Protection imposed a civil claim against SAA on behalf of passengers complaining about delayed refunds of their tickets for US flights cancelled during the Covid-forced grounding of airline operations. The carrier notes that in its continuous engagements with the DOT, it has always contended that, notwithstanding the challenges of its own business-rescue process and the pandemic, it took "extraordinary" steps during 2019-22 to process the refunds in all the markets served by it. It paid out around R2.2 billion ($117 million) relating to Covid-era unflown tickets refunds between April 2021 and March 2023, it adds. "The intention of the parties was always to find an amicable way of closing this case," states SAA's chief legal counsel Koekie Mbeki. "We look forward to normalising relations with our customers in the USA and welcoming them aboard SAA when we resume flights to the Americas in the future."

Supply-chain problems mean that Lufthansa Group currently has around 100 aircraft – more than 13% of its fleet – out of service, chief executive Carsten Spohr has revealed. "All of the key suppliers of the industry are having issues," he told journalists on 3 June, at IATA's AGM in Dubai. "There's shortage of airframes, shortage of engines, and even when you have an airframe with a matching engine, you [potentially] cannot fly the engine when it is a Pratt & Whitney engine," he adds, alluding to the ongoing inspection programme affecting PW1100G powerplants. This means that "out of 750 aircraft [in Lufthansa Group's fleet], currently 100 are not operating for various reasons", he says. Those reasons can include lack of crew or engines. Airlines always have a certain proportion of their fleets on the ground to serve as reserves and for maintenance reasons, but the current level is greater than usual, Spohr observes. He believes other large carriers have similar ratios of aircraft out of operation. In his view, given the problems at OEMs across the industry, "this will take a long time to balance out again", he warns. However, it also means the wider industry will not again fall into the "trap" of increasing supply leading to overcapacity. This is "obviously not because we have become any smarter", he acknowledges, but because supply-chain problems mean "we can't".