Alaska Air Group hopes, in the long run, to tap the Singapore jet fuel market as a "nice, stable source of much-lower-cost fuel than Gulf Coast", despite current supply issues in Singapore's market. "We were doing 20% of our fuel from there [before the Iran war], and we like the idea of moving that up materially, maybe even to 30% or 40% over time," said Shane Tackett, Alaska Air Group's chief financial officer, on 21 April during an earnings call. Singapore is not an oil producer, but its role as a trading, storage and blending hub makes it one of the most influential energy centres globally, according to a 16 February S&P Global report. Singapore's refining capacity has remained at 1.27 million barrels per day since 2022, as the largest refining center in Southeast Asia, operated by three major players: Aster, ExxonMobil and Singapore Refining, the report adds. Jet fuel and kerosene are the largest components in refinery output, followed by gasoline and diesel. Singapore jet fuel prices have surged since the outbreak of the USA and Israel's war against Iran on 28 February. The discussion about Singapore-sourced fuel during Alaska's earnings call was prompted by Atul Maheswari, an analyst at UBS Securities, who had been "reading some energy reports that global refining capacity is basically down 6-8% since the war started". He asks: "How long can this disruption persist, in your view, before it causes real jet fuel availability problems in markets like Singapore, where you source from?" While noting that Alaska is "obviously not the absolute expert on… global oil supplies or refineries", Tackett notes the company does "understand our markets really well and our supply chain really well". He says: "We don't foresee any disruption anytime in the foreseeable future across our network", explaining that Alaska is "not so sourced out of Asia or Singapore into any of our markets". "And if we need to supply Hawaii, as an example, from the domestic market, that is totally within our ability to do." Alaska's hope is that in the long term, the situation normalises and Singapore refineries "come back on strong" and "those costs return to where they were pre-conflict". A resolution to the conflict between the USA and Israel and Iran remains uncertain. US vice-president JD Vance's trip to Pakistan for a second round of negotiations with Iran has been put on hold after Iran did not respond to American positions, according to a 21 April update by The New York Times, which cited an anonymous source. Cirium has not independently verified that report. Outside of the current crisis, a more long-running issue for airlines operating on the US West Coast is constraints in the supply of Jet A, a type of jet fuel that has faced tighter availability and higher price volatility due to reduced local refining capacity and constrained logistics. Tackett says that "from an industry perspective, we need to work on the West Coast Jet A supply issue". "Long term, there's just increasing desire to fly and demand for today, and we don't have the pipeline infrastructure, refinery infrastructure that the Gulf Coast or the East Coast has," Tackett says. "That'll take time, but it's something that we're focused on, and I think other airlines are starting to focus on along with us." He also says that Alaska is "working on building infrastructure here in Seattle to be able to take tankered fuel into Seattle, which would be a game changer for us in terms of the supply chain." Alaska Air Group is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. He adds: "There's a lot of interest in ultimately getting that work done. These are long tail investments, though, and so it's nice to talk about them, but it's probably a ways away before we structurally are able to begin to resolve this." He reminds analysts that Alaska has had a "10-15% fuel disadvantage structurally for our entire life out here on the West Coast". "So this isn't new for us, and we've, even with that, been able to outperform most of the industry on margins over time," he says. Ultimately, Alaska's chief executive Ben Minicucci thinks Alaska's growth into more of a global carrier – it has acquired Hawaiian Airlines and next week plans to launch its first-ever flights to Europe – positions it better to weather market shocks like the current fuel price uncertainty. Brandon Oglenski, an analyst at Barclays, asked on the earnings call how Alaska is positioning its business "to potentially deal with maybe a higher differential on the West Coast". "If you would have asked me three years ago with a standalone Alaska, it would have been a lot more difficult for us," Minicucci says. "But now... we're flying to different geographies, and we have the airplanes to access any part of the world today." He adds: "I'm not looking at this through rose-coloured glasses. I know that every year there's something happening in the world where you have to pivot and move the business somewhere else. And I think we're becoming good at it."

Doha Hamad International airport has started to reopen to some foreign carriers as the ceasefire in the Iran conflict is extended. Qatar Civil Aviation Authority states that it issued a notice to airmen on 21 April announcing the resumption of services following a "comprehensive assessment of the situation, conducted in coordination with all relevant national entities". The airport says that from 21 April, Flydubai resumed services, with Air Arabia set to restart its flights there the following day. Then, on 23 April, Oman Air, Royal Jordanian, Tarco Aviation and US-Bangla Airlines are set to operate flights. Middle East Airlines is listed to restart flights from 26 April and Himalaya Airlines from 28 April. Qatar Airways, meanwhile, says that it plans to expand its network to over 150 destinations from 16 June, with its schedule in place up to 15 September. Nonetheless, it is still offering passengers booked up to 15 September complimentary date changes for travel up to 31 October. Qatar's action comes as Dubai has extended a limit of one return flight per day, per route from foreign carriers out to 31 May, Reuters reports, citing airline communications from Dubai Airports. Cirium has contacted Dubai Airports for comment on the report. The actions come as US president Donald Trump confirmed in a 21 April social media post that he has extended the ceasefire with Iran "until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other".

Air India has taken the first of 26 Boeing 787-8s after completing its cabin refurbishment and started an interline arrangement with WestJet. The aircraft, registered VT-ANT, received its cabin upgrades at Boeing's Victorville modification centre and was then repainted at AeroPro in San Bernardino. Under the retrofit programme, the 787-8s move from a two- to a three-class configuration, featuring 20 business class suites in a 1-2-1 layout, 25 premium economy seats in 2-3-2 layout and 205 economy seats in 3-3-3 layout. Air India states that the business class seats are Elevate Ascent, while Recaro supplied its PL3530 and CL3710 seats in premium and economy classes, respectively. "The retrofit of our first widebody aircraft is a visible symbol of the momentum behind Air India’s transformation," says chief executive Campbell Wilson. "With 25 other 787s undergoing this comprehensive refresh, we are rapidly modernising the backbone of our long‑haul fleet and raising the bar for customers flying between India and the world." Separately, Air India has entered a new interline partnership with WestJet that will allow its passengers to connect to 17 Canadian and 14 US cities from Toronto and Vancouver. The Indian carrier operates 10 weekly services to Toronto and daily to Vancouver. Connections to Halifax, Calgary and St John's are also possible via Amsterdam, Paris Charles de Gaulle, and London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports, which WestJet serves.