Lufthansa Group has signed a contract for four additional Airbus A350-900s, which will be acquired from asset manager Deucalion Aviation. The widebodies will be delivered later this year, says the German airline group. Lufthansa currently operates 21 A350-900s, and in March ordered five more A350-900s and 10 A350-1000s. The group says it holds a total of 38 firm orders for the A350, making it the long-haul aircraft type's third-largest customer.

Ryanair swung to a full-year net profit of €1.43 billion ($1.55 billion) in fiscal 2023, and is "cautiously optimistic" that strong demand will help it offset rising fuel costs and deliver a "modest" profit increase in fiscal 2024. The carrier's net profit for the 12 months ended 31 March compares with a €355 million net loss the previous year. The airline made a fourth-quarter net loss of €154 million. Revenue in fiscal 2023 more than doubled to €10.8 billion as passenger numbers increased 74% to 169 million. Ryanair's full-year load factor improved by 11 percentage points to 93%. Operating costs rose 75% to €9.2 billion. Ryanair expects its fuel bill in fiscal 2024 to be €1 billion higher, but declares itself "cautiously optimistic" that revenue will "grow sufficiently" to cover the increased cost and enable it to deliver a "modest year-on-year profit increase". The carrier says it will be up to 10 aircraft short in the peak summer months of June and July, as a result of Boeing's delivery disruptions. "To facilitate Boeing and to assist their resumption of scheduled [737 Max 8-200] deliveries this autumn, we will take delivery of aircraft through July and possibly into August," says Ryanair. "We hope and expect that Boeing will recover quickly from this recent delay to minimise its impact on our FY24 traffic growth and profitability." Earlier this month, Ryanair signed an agreement to purchase up to 300 Max 10s – 150 firm orders and 150 options – for delivery between 2027 and 2033. Half the order will be used to replace older 737s and the remainder will "facilitate disciplined traffic growth" to about 300 million a year by FY34 – 80% more passengers than it carried in FY23. This year, Ryanair hopes to grow traffic by 10% to 185 million, although it cautions that "Boeing's recent delivery delays may push some of this growth into the lower-yielding H2 and may reduce this target slightly".

SpiceJet has confirmed that India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation has deregistered three Boeing 737s while requests to deregister two others have been suspended. The carrier says in a statement provided that out of the requests made by SMBC Aviation Capital and CDB Aviation Leasing to deregister a total of five aircraft between them, "one lessor has already requested DGCA to suspend the deregistration of two aircraft". Documents seen show that CDB Aviation Leasing filed deregistration requests for two 737 Max 8s, MSNs 60184 and 60646, on 11 May. Legal sources confirm that the DGCA has deregistered two 737 Max 8s (MSNs 64507 and 64509) and a 737-800 (MSN 41397) that were requested by SMBC Aviation Capital on 8 May. While not confirming the lessor, SpiceJet says that "out of the remaining three, two were grounded for a long period, and not operational". Fleets data shows that the airline has 11 737 Max 8s, 16 737NGs (including two -700 Freighters) and nine De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400s in service. A further four Max 8s, 11 737NGs and 18 Dash 8-400s are stored. "We remain focussed on bringing on our grounded fleet back into operations," the airline adds.