Finnair has appointed the national postal chief to replace Topi Manner, who departs the flag carrier's helm on 15 January.
Turkka Kuusisto has led Finland's main postal service company, Posti Group, since 2020. Posti says Kuusisto has given notice of his resignation to join Finnair on 11 July at the latest. Until then, he will continue to serve as Posti's chief executive. Posti is a publicly owned company. Finnair is majority-owned by the Finnish state. Finnair notes that its current chief operating officer, Jaakko Schild, will hold the top job on an interim basis ahead of Kuusisto coming aboard. "Finnair has restored its profitability after the historic double crisis, and the company is well positioned to continue to build a sustainable future, offering excellent connections via its Helsinki hub to both Finns and to customers traveling between Europe and Asia, the Middle East and Americas," states Sanna Suvanto-Harsaae, chair of Finnair's board of directors. "Turkka brings to Finnair his strong understanding of complex industries and his proven people leadership and strategy skills, which will benefit Finnair as Finnair now moves to the next phase in its strategy," she adds. The surprise announcement last August that Manner was stepping down capped a tumultuous period for the airline. After the pandemic's devastating impact on the industry, Finnair's recovery was hit by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, which resulted in a shutdown of Russian airspace to Western airlines including Finnair. As the carrier had made connecting Europe with Asia the core of its long-haul business model, it was forced to rapidly reorder its capacity, adding services to the Middle East as well as North America. It also sought to implement dramatic cost-cutting measures, reorganising its supply chain and slashing expenditure on its short-haul network. The carrier said during its last quarterly results presentations in late-October that it expected to return to operational profitability for the full year to end-December, forecasting a figure of €160-200 million ($170-$213 million). It since raised €570 million from investors as part of a rights offering in November. Much of this was used to pay back a Covid-era state loan.

Boeing delivered 157 commercial aircraft in the fourth quarter, up from 105 jets in the previous quarter and 152 aircraft delivered in the year-ago period. These include 110 737s, 23 787s, 15 767s and nine 777s, the US airframer says. For the full year, the airframer delivered 528 commercial aircraft, compared with 480 the year before. Boeing delivered 396 737 Maxes and 73 787 Dreamliners in 2023, hitting its delivery target for the year. Boeing revised its 737 delivery target to 375-400 in October from 400-450 at the start of 2023 after it discovered manufacturing flaws by supplier Spirit AeroSystems. It had also set a target of delivering 70-80 787s for the year. Besides the narrowbodies and Dreamliners, Boeing delivered 32 767s, 26 777s and one 747 in 2023. For the full year, Boeing received 1,314 new net orders for commercial aircraft after accounting for conversions and cancellations, compared with 774 the year before. According to the airframer, it logged 1,456 gross commercial aircraft orders – including 987 737 Maxes and 313 787s – compared with 935 gross orders in 2022.

Korean Air has signed a sustainable aviation fuel co-operation programme agreement with logistics company Yusen Logistics to further promote the use of SAF in the air cargo industry. The two companies will collaborate on promoting SAF usage within the Asian region in alignment with the aviation industry's climate change goals, the airline says. Yusen Logistics is the airline's first cargo SAF partner based in Japan. “We are delighted to welcome Yusen Logistics as our cargo SAF programme partner, to jointly promote and implement SAF usage”, says Jaedong Eum, head of cargo business division at Korean Air. “With this partnership with Korean Air, we are able to support our customers to decarbonize their supply chains and help stimulate larger supply for SAF,” adds Eisuke Fukagawa, global head of airfreight forwarding group at Yusen Logistics. In September 2023, Korean Air launched a programme to use SAF for air cargo operations with air cargo customers and forwarders. Under the programme, customers are able to purchase SAF for air cargo operations, and Korean Air will share the carbon emissions reductions with its customers.