Airbus delivered 30 mainly narrowbody aircraft to 18 customers in January. The European airframer says a total of two A330-900 widebody aircraft and 28 narrowbody aircraft, including two A220-300s, 13 A320neos, and 13 A321neos, were delivered. JetBlue Airways and Qantas Airways both acquired A220-300s, while ITA Airways and Condor each received an A330-900. EasyJet and Indigo both acquired three A320neos, while CALC received two. One aircraft each was received by SMBC Aviation Capital, Air China, ICBC Leasing, SAS, and Chengdu Airlines. As for the A321neo aircraft, Volaris, JetBlue Airways, United Airlines, NAS Aviation Services, and Chengdu Airlines have received one each, while Air Lease Corporation and Wizz Air got three aircraft each. Delta Airlines also received two A321neos. In January 2024, Airbus took orders for a total of 31 units and the largest of those orders came from Delta Air Lines, which placed an order for 20 A350-1000. Ethiopian Airlines also ordered 11 A350-900s.

The Oneworld alliance has appointed current senior vice-president of fleet, finance and alliances at Alaska Airlines, Nathaniel Pieper as its new chief executive officer, effective 1 April. As CEO, Pieper will focus on strengthening the alliance between its partners to provide customers with a seamless travel experience, Oneworld says. He will report to the alliance's governing board, comprised of the member airline CEOs. The alliance notes that in his current role at Alaska Airlines, Pieper organised the airline's entry into Oneworld, coordinated more than $9 billion in aircraft transactions and secured access to $5 billion in liquidity to ensure Alaska's viability through the pandemic. He has previously held executive positions at Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines. Oneworld alliance chairman Robert Isom states: "We are excited to welcome Nat Pieper into the role of CEO at Oneworld and look forward to the alliance continuing its journey of innovation and collaboration under his leadership."

Intensified regulatory oversight of Boeing's production practices and enactment of the reauthorisation bill for the US Federal Aviation Administration are crucial to fending off competitive challenges from French airframer Airbus, a US congressman argued during a "State of American Aviation and the FAA" hearing in Washington DC on 6 February. Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee and ranking member of the House of Representatives subcommittee on aviation, noted during the hearing that "we hope that we can have success and the confidence of the American public that airplanes are flying and that we don't lose business to Airbus". He warns that in the aftermath of the door-plug blowout event on 5 January during an Alaska Airlines flight operated by a 737 Max 9, "the French have already made overtures" – presumably to US carriers. "[Aircraft manufacturing] is an important industry to America," Cohen says. He adds: "As [the Max 9 incident] and the Max 8 crashes [in 2018 and 2019] demonstrate, complacency is a luxury we cannot afford when it comes to aviation safety. Boeing and the FAA's oversight must make necessary changes to ensure that similar incidents and accidents don't happen again – doors flying off in the middle of the air, planes falling out of the sky, or whatever." The congressman asked hearing witness FAA administrator Michael Whitaker if the regulator is looking at aircraft manufacturing "around the world" to "get best practices on all these things". Whitaker responds: "Well, we'd like to think that we're the best practices." "We may be," Cohen says, "but Airbus kind of claims that they're doing pretty good." Cohen also asked Whitaker – whose nomination as FAA administrator was approved by the US Senate in October 2023 – which aspects of the production oversight and quality assurance of Boeing aircraft are considered delegated by the FAA to the manufacturer, and how the FAA oversees the airframer's representatives when they are performing those delegated functions. It was not immediately apparent from Whitaker's response if he is clear on who does what during oversight of Boeing's production processes. He notes that the FAA has "tasked" MITRE (a nonprofit organisation that supports federally funded research and development centres in the USA) to "actually look sort of at a technical level of where the delegations are and what our options are with respect to delegation". Until recently, the onus for quality control had mostly rested with Boeing, Whitaker suggests. "Quality control and quality assurance are a key function for a manufacturer," he says. "So it normally falls within the purview of that manufacturer, although there's no reason to not have those types of functions done by a third party. So I think that's something we'd want to look at as well." The FAA administrator adds that manufacturers' oversight of production has "focused heavily" on an audit system in which paperwork is checked to make certain "systems are in place". The regulator is now "migrating" to what Whitaker calls an "audit-plus" system. "We are going to have more of a surveillance component, much like you would find on the flight line or in maintenance stations, where inspectors are actually on the ground talking to people and looking at the work that's being done. So we are proposing at this point to expand the oversight approach to include both audit and inspection, which is why we're moving inspectors into the facilities." He adds: "We know what we need to do next, which is to have more on-the-ground presence to verify what's going on." Cohen and other members of the aviation subcommittee – which falls under House Transportation and Infrastructure committee – complained that the US Senate's hold-up on considering the bipartisan FAA reauthorisation bill passed by the House in July 2023 is further imperiling the safety and growth of US aviation. Sam Graves, a Republican from Missouri and chairman of House Transportation and Infrastructure committee, warns of the "consequences of having no long-term FAA bill". The legislation would provide the FAA with additional funding and staffing, and help resolve the shortage of air traffic control professionals. Graves and Cohen are both looking to Whitaker to apply pressure on US senators to mark up the House bill and approve their own version. "We're depending on you to pick up that slack," Graves says to Whitaker. Cohen adds: "The first thing we need to do is to get the reauthorisation bill passed. We've done our job, now it's your job to get the Senate to do their job."