Swiss has begun installing premium-economy seats on its Airbus A340-300 fleet. The Lufthansa subsidiary says the first aircraft (HB-JMB) featuring the new cabin layout was returned to service on 25 January, after installation of the new seats had begun in December. Three other A340-300s in Swiss’s fleet will be completed by April. The airline has opted to install 21 premium-economy seats under the new configuration, which reduces the number of business seats from 47 to 42, and economy seats from 168 to 144. A section with eight first seats remains unchanged. The aircraft’s total seat number has been reduced to 215 from 223. In 2022, Swiss introduced premium economy seats on 12 Boeing 777-300ERs, as the last Lufthansa group carrier to adopt the fare category. Data shows Swiss’s A340s are aged between 19 and 20 years. In December, the airline disclosed a plan to introduce five A350-900s from 2025 as A340 replacement “in the longer term”. Just before the pandemic in 2020, Swiss had completed a cabin upgrade of its then-five A340s to bring their interior in line with the carrier's much younger 777s. One of Swiss's A340s has since been allocated to leisure affiliate Edelweiss Air. Swiss deploys its A340s a on routes to Chicago, Hong Kong and Johannesburg, it notes. The airline says it will install premium-economy on its 14-strong A330-300 fleet too. Details for that effort will be disclosed “over the next few weeks”, it adds. “Our new premium-economy class has rapidly established itself as a hugely popular way of travel,” chief commercial officer Tamur Goudarzi Pour states. “The highly positive feedback that we’ve received from our customers… has only strengthened our resolve to offer this top-quality product on more of our routes.” Lufthansa and its group siblings Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Swiss opted for premium-economy seats by German supplier ZIM Aircraft Seating. Swiss describes its fixed-shell seat version as a “best-in-class premium-economy seat which sets new comfort benchmarks”. It says it is the “first airline in the Lufthansa Group” to introduce the seat.

Ryanair has installed split scimitar winglets on the first of over 400 Boeing 737-800s across its fleet. The winglets similar to those installed on 737 Max jets will improve the aircraft's fuel efficiency by up to 1.5% and reduce Ryanair's annual fuel consumption by 65 million litres, the Irish low-cost carrier says. It adds that the deal with equipment supplier Aviation Partners Boeing is worth $175 million. "As Ryanair grows to carry 225 million passengers by financial year 2026, this initiative will further its target of net-zero by 2050," the airline states.

United Airlines has gained a 10% shareholding in US regional carrier Mesa Airlines, as a "material inducement" related to a capacity-purchase agreement enacted in late December. The US major will get one seat on Mesa's board as part of the deal, which includes a $10 million revolving loan from United, due and payable on 31 January 2024, the carriers say in a 23 January filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Mesa on 27 December entered into an amended capacity-purchase agreement with United, having earlier that month disclosed that it was expanding its existing relationship with United while exiting an arrangement with American Airlines."As a result of ongoing unprofitable operations with American Airlines, driven primarily by higher pilot wages and block-hour utilisation penalties driven by the ongoing industry wide pilot shortage, Mesa initiated and has finalised a consensual wind-down of its American operations," the Phoenix, Arizona-based regional carrier said on 19 December. At the time, Mesa was finalising a five-year agreement with United that would place aircraft into United Express operations and compensate Mesa for the higher costs associated with regional jet flying. The new agreement with United was set to cover "all of Mesa's existing flying at American, and could increase to 38 CRJ900 aircraft, dependent upon the number of [Embraer] E175s that Mesa is operating".