IndiGo has kicked off its hosting of the IATA Annual General Meeting in Delhi by signing a tentative agreement with Airbus to exercise 30 options for additional Airbus A350-900s. Chief executive Pieter Elbers signed the memorandum of understanding with Airbus executive vice president sales Benoît de Saint-Exupéry during a 1 June media briefing. "We've recently started widebody operations, we're extremely excited about the progress," Elbers says. "We can't wait for Airbus to deliver the A359s and we thought this was a wonderful opportunity to actually double our firm orders from 30 to 60." IndiGo placed its order for 30 A350-900s plus 70 options in April 2024, the first of which will deliver in 2026. The longtime Airbus narrowbody operator has also wet-leased Boeing 777-300ERs from Turkish Airlines and recently inducted its first of six 787-9s wet-leased from Norse Atlantic Airways. Once firmed, the additional A350s will take IndiGo's backlog to 1,400 aircraft, de Saint-Exupéry says. "Just a year ago we were here in Delhi signing the first widebody order with IndiGo and we are excited to be doubling down with your interest to exercise these additional A350s," he said to Elbers.

Delta Air Lines chief executive, Ed Bastian, has offered his full support to a proposal by Virgin Atlantic, to split up London Heathrow airport, in a bid to foster competition. "Speaking for us as Delta, we fully support what Shai Weiss, chief executive at Virgin Atlantic and the team are proposing," he said in response to a question over whether Heathrow's terminals could be hived off to separate owners. Heathrow, Bastian continues, is "maybe the most important airport in the world", he said during a press briefing at IATA’s AGM event in Delhi but is the "toughest to gain access to and the toughest and most expensive to navigate". This was acting as a drain on the facility’s benefit to the UK economy, he adds. Weiss has previously called Heathrow a "de facto monopolistic" airport whose dominant position benefits shareholders at the expense of UK consumers. Taking inspiration from regulations elsewhere, he has proposed that terminals within the airport be owned and operated by different companies at the insistence of regulators. "Why not consider competition in the campus itself?" he asked in November 2022. That was in response to a bid by Heathrow, later partly rebuffed by the Civil Aviation Authority, to increase fees. Airlines have long complained that the facility has the highest airline expenses in the world, pushing up ticket prices. Sitting alongside Bastian, Pieter Elbers, chief executive of IndiGo, notes that there is an "imbalance" in capacity between Europe and India more generally, which means that the majority – around 65% - of seats between the two blocs are on European carriers, partly due to a lack of slots. Breaking up Heathrow could help to remedy the situation, he believes. Meanwhile Ben Smith, who leads Air France-KLM, said his priority regarding Heathrow is to ensure the same quality of services between terminals, "and today that’s not the case". Also speaking in Delhi, Virgin Atlantic's Weiss appeared to rebuke Heathrow boss Thomas Woldbye over his handling of a recent power outage at the facility which forced it to close for several hours. A report commissioned by Heathrow and published on 28 May detailed that Woldbye was asleep with his phone on silent for the first few hours of the issue, leaving a deputy to make the decision to close the airport down. "The last time I put my phone on silent running an airline was never," said Weiss. "I think all my colleagues [on the panel today] would share that observation." He adds that the airline was continuing to push for compensation for the disruption, with airlines and the airport first waiting for the results of several reports that have been commissioned into the outage. Estimates of the cost of the outage run into the hundreds of millions of pounds, with IAG estimating it alone took a hit of €50 million ($57 million). "We expect [Heathrow] to do the right thing," says Weiss, adding that "once the dust settles, our bill is coming."

IATA has cautioned that passenger markets in North America are showing signs of a sudden downturn in consumer sentiment which is filtering through to airlines. As part of an update on data for April, director general Willie Walsh highlights "some signs of fragility" from consumers and businesses in the US domestic market, plus a "sharp fall" in North American premium-class bookings. Amid a global expansion in air passenger demand by RPKs of 8% in the year to April, North America grew by just 1.6%, easily the weakest of any region. Meanwhile, growth in international demand to and from North America lagged at just 5.4%, far behind the next-weakest, Europe, on 9.4%. Likewise, domestic US traffic declined 0.5% in April, making it the only region to register a decline – and this was its third consecutive month of decline. Load factor for flights within the USA came in at 80.6%, down 3.1 percentage points year on year. The only other major nation to show a fall in load factors was India, down 0.9 percentage points at 85.7%. Signs of a faltering US market contrast with data showing generally buoyant air passenger markets across the rest of the world. Growth in demand was led by Africa at 14.2%, followed by the Middle East at 11.3%, Latin America at 10.9%, Asia-Pacific at 10.6% and Europe by 8.3%. Globally, international demand was up by 10.8% and domestic demand by 3.3%. Capacity, as measured by ASKs, was lifted 6.5% year on year, and load factor reached 83.6%, up 1.1 percentage points versus April 2024. "April was a positive month for travel," states Walsh. "Growth strengthened, especially for international demand which saw record load factors for the month. The return of the transatlantic market to growth is particularly encouraging." Ahead of IATA's AGM, which will take place in Delhi on 1-3 June, Walsh declares that the growth of India's air connectivity in recent years "has been nothing short of phenomenal, making this year's gathering a timely and powerful reminder for all on how aviation connectivity drives growth and development".