Ryanair has lost four separate legal cases contesting the decisions to approve state aid to European airlines through the pandemic. The EU General Court ruled four times on 18 October that the approval of state aid to former Italian carrier Alitalia, plus Air Baltic, Brussels Airlines and Nordica, were valid, dismissing Ryanair’s various challenges. The low-cost airline was ordered to pay the defendants’ costs. In each case, Ryanair was seeking action against the European Commission, the state providing the aid, and, in the case of Air Baltic and Brussels Airlines, the carriers themselves. It had argued that aid amounted to unfair subsidies and was anti-competitive, with the Commission having failed to follow proper procedure or fully examine the implications of the financial support being provided. It therefore sought to have the court annul the approvals. This was rejected by the Commission who argued, in each case, that the airline in question played an important role in their national economy, and therefore were sole beneficiaries of state aid that had met legal and procedural benchmarks.

Freight airline DHL Express has agreed to buy 668 million litres of SAF using sustainable aviation fuel certificates (SAFc) over seven years from US-based producer World Energy. The SAFc contract will enable DHL Express to offer customers the option to buy SAF via their Go Green Plus service without the need for the physical product to be used on their flights, which saves the expensive and carbon-intensive task of shipping it around. It allows corporate buyers to pay the premium for SAF, enabling them to claim the Scope 3 carbon reductions on emissions connected to their supply chains, while DHL Express can also count it as an absolute reduction of their CO2 output from core operations – a Scope 1 saving. “This helps make SAFc the most efficient way to decarbonise aviation,” says World Fuels. The physically-produced SAF will be supplied to airports in the Los Angeles area, close to World Energy’s California production facility. DHL Express and World Fuels describe the deal as the one of the longest and largest SAFc agreements in the aviation industry to date, that is expected to save around 1.7 million tonnes of CO2 over the aviation fuel cycle. That is the equivalent of DHL Express’s 77,000 annual aircraft movements in the Americas for a year.

Hyundai Motor Group's advanced air mobility unit Supernal has partnered with Korean Air to accelerate the development of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft in Korea. The deal was signed on 16 October at the Seoul ADEX aerospace and defence exposition, and will see the two companies exchange technical data, participate in workshops, and jointly test Supernal's infrastructure networks. KAL will provide input on market requirements and aircraft specifications. The partnership is significant due to Korea's plans to leverage 5G and LTE mobile communication capabilities to share information among pilots, as well as creating dedicated AAM corridors that will separate those vehicles from other low-level airspace users like helicopters. Supernal says it plans to develop a comprehensive global AAM ecosystem that includes aftermarket products and services supporting eVTOL vehicles after purchase. US-based Supernal aims to begin flights with an eVTOL demonstrator in 2024 and to certificate its eVTOL in time to launch revenue passenger flights in the USA by 2028.