Pilots at Qantas subsidiary Network Aviation have voted to strike for one day from the early hours of 4 October over an ongoing pay dispute, which is likely to impact a number of mining charter and scheduled services from Perth to regional ports in Western Australia. The Australian Federation of Air Pilots says that the 24-hour stoppage will occur from midnight local time, and follows more than 99% of its members at Network Aviation voting in favour of taking the industrial action. "The AFAP remains committed to reaching an agreement for our members in Western Australia who fly for Qantas subsidiary Network Aviation and is disappointed that we have had to take this action," says the union's senior industrial officer Chris Aikens. Pilots have been operating under an agreement that expired in 2016, but have been unable to reach a new deal with Qantas, which has offered pay increases but is also seeking offsets in other areas. "Our proposed agreement offers our pilots significant pay rises and more guaranteed days off each roster period and we’re disappointed the AFAP has chosen to move towards industrial action while we have been trying to negotiate," Qantas says in a statement. Fleets data shows that Network operates 16 Fokker 100s and 15 Airbus A320s under the QantasLink banner. The unit operates charters and scheduled services that support remote mines in Western Australia, and Wednesday represents a peak day for those operations due to shift changes among most of its clients. Networks data indicates that at least 58 scheduled flights to ports including Port Hedland, Broome, Paraburdoo, Exmouth, Darwin and Kalgoorlie will be impacted by the strike, although the actual impact is expected to be larger due to its flights direct to minesites that are not captured in flight schedules. Qantas states that it has contingency plans in place to minimise the disruption to its customers.

Cathay Pacific has exercised purchase rights for a total 32 Airbus A320neos and A321neos that were part of an order placed with the airframer in 2017. The carrier states in a Hong Kong stock exchange notice that the single-aisles are scheduled for delivered by the end of 2029 and will operated by the mainline unit and/or its HK Express subsidiary. Airbus previously said it had no delivery slots for new A320neo-family orders available before 2029. Cathay has not disclosed a split between A320neos and A321neos under the new order. Fleets data shows Cathay has 12 CFM International Leap-1A-powered A321neos in its fleet, which otherwise comprises Boeing and Airbus widebodies. Three A320ceos and two A321ceos – fitted with International Aero Engines V2500s – are listed in storage, while a further four A321neos are on order for the mainline. HK Express, meanwhile, has seven A320ceos and 11 A321ceos – all V2500-powered – and 10 A320neos with Pratt & Whitney PW1100Gs. Additionally, HK Express has two Leap-1A-powered A320neos in its fleet and another 14 of these twinjets on order. Cathay says the 32 additional single-aisles have a basic aircraft price value of $4.66 billion. The airline adds that it received significant concessions from Airbus, in line with price reductions of previous deals with the European airframe. Sale and leaseback arrangements and/or finance leases will be used to fund the additional aircraft, Cathay notes.

Ryanair sees a potential need to slash ticket prices to stimulate the UK market this winter, as it detects particular weakness in consumer confidence outside London. During a media event in London on 27 September, group chief executive Michael O'Leary said trading outside of the UK remained "strong" and showed no signs of a significant slowdown. However, the UK is "weaker [than other markets] with the exception of London, which continues to be strong". He attributes this to a challenging economic situation in the country with higher interest rates and energy bills than continental Europe. "We may have to stimulate fares here," he says, adding, however, that this "wouldn't be the worst thing in the world". He adds: "Demand for travel is not insatiable… Everything points to a dip in consumer confidence and consumer spending, and eventually that feeds back into [demand for] flights." Companywide sales are trending 4-5% ahead of last year through October, November and December, he notes, with capacity 60%, 30% and 15% booked up for those months, respectively. "We are seeing people booking earlier at slightly higher fares, but we are not sure if that will continue into winter." O'Leary repeated his criticism, originally aired earlier this month, of Martin Rolfe, the chief executive of UK air traffic controller NATS, describing his performance as "useless" and "incompetent". He also takes issue with Rolfe's 2023 pay award, labelling it "reprehensible and offensive". This follows the announcement on 25 September that flights would have to be cancelled at Gatwick this week because, NATS disclosed, 30% of its controllers were sick with Covid. NATS, he argues, has enough staff to operate effectively but is hamstrung by poor management and with many staff working from home. Two days of disruption to flights because of a system outage at NATS in August will cost Ryanair Group around £15 million ($18 million), O'Leary estimates, adding that Ryanair pays the air traffic manager more than £100 million per year for its services. He accuses UK aviation minister Baroness Vere of having "disappeared" amid the latest flight disruption. NATS operates through a public-private partnership and the UK government holds a 48.9% stake. The air traffic manager says it will not be making any further statements in relation to the disruption at Gatwick airport beyond a 25 September media release in which it said that given the levels of sickness NATS had experienced over the last few weeks "we believe it is the responsible thing to do to limit the number of flights this week in order to reduce the risk of daily disruption to passengers using the airport".