American Airlines intends to file an appeal of a US district court judge's ruling on 19 May that the US major and JetBlue Airways must terminate their "Northeast Alliance" (NEA). "We've got a legal system that allows for an appeal, and we're going to do that," American's chief executive Robert Isom said on 31 May during the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in New York. "The judge said the NEA has to wind down… In the meantime, we're going to work with the DOJ and JetBlue." Isom adds that the NEA was launched to provide benefits for consumers and more competition in the New York region. "We entered into it for all the right reasons," he says. Judge Leo Sorokin of the Massachusetts district court permanently enjoined American and JetBlue from continuing, and restrained from further implementing, the NEA codeshare, effective 30 days from the 19 May court order. The US Department of Justice's lawsuit, filed in September 2021, accused the airlines of reinforcing consolidation in Boston and New York City because American is the world's largest commercial carrier by fleet size and because it will diminish "JetBlue's incentive to compete with American elsewhere".

Boeing and environmental non-profit Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) will conduct a joint study on scaling sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production in Southeast Asia. "Phase one of the study will evaluate whether SAF production could scale sustainably in Southeast Asia based on the availability and sustainability of feedstocks across the region," the manufacturer says. The study will also assess the sustainable feedstock policy environment, as well as the technical and economic viability of main SAF production pathways. Findings and recommendations will be published in the first quarter of 2024, it adds. While the current global SAF supply accounts for only around 0.1% of jet fuel consumption, the Asia-Pacific region can play a crucial role in SAF production with a potential of 40% of global feedstock supply, according to Boeing. Boeing and RSB have established an advisory group of key stakeholders including policymakers, companies and environmental and financial institutions to provide subject matter expertise. Additional stakeholders will be consulted as the study progresses, it adds. This project builds on the long-standing partnership between Boeing and RSB to explore SAF feedstock opportunities in different regions of the world including in Ethiopia, South Africa and Brazil.

Qantas has called on Australia to follow the lead of Europe, Japan and the UK by introducing a mandatory sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) blending mandate to help jump-start local production. "Several of the countries we fly to have already committed to blending mandates of 5 to 10 per cent by 2030, and others are well on the path to introducing one. Australia has significant advantages for SAF production and there's a great opportunity to create a new domestic industry," says Qantas's chief sustainability officer Andrew Parker. "Without the right policy settings and signals, we will see investment, projects and feedstocks move offshore to places with specific policy support." Qantas uplifts SAF-blended fuel for its flights from London and from 2025 has committed to take 20 million litres per year for flights out of California. The airline says, however, that Australia lacks a commercial-scale SAF industry, and the mandate would help to boost investment in scalable facility. The call to Canberra comes as Qantas committed to invest an additional A$110 million ($71.8 million) towards its Climate Fund, which will be focused on scaling SAF opportunities, offsets and operational efficiency. This comes on top of an earlier A$290 million co-investment with Airbus in the fund, which has so far focused on developing alcohol-to-SAF refinery in Queensland. It adds that a further 12 domestic SAF projects are under assessment, with over 50 non-disclosure agreements and memoranda of understandings signed. "We're determined to be a leader in this space and that's supported by the new commitments we've made today, as well as calling for more action industry-wide in the form of a sustainable aviation fuel mandate," says chief financial officer and chief executive-designate Vanessa Hudson. Finnish energy company Neste has said previously that mandates are necessary in Asia-Pacific to help drive investment in SAF production, which is well behind that in Europe.