Lufthansa has not yet made an engine selection for a batch of seven Boeing 787-9s it ordered from the US airframer under a deal disclosed earlier this month. The German airline opted for Rolls-Royce's Trent 1000-TEN for its initial order of 20 787-9s in 2019. But the first Dreamliners to enter Lufthansa's fleet – part of a subsequent deal with Boeing to acquire five 787-9s previously ordered by another airline – are fitted with GE Aerospace GEnx-1B engines. Three GEnx-1B-powered 787-9s have joined Lufthansa's fleet since August 2022, fleets data shows. The airline says it has yet to decide on an engine for the additional 787s it has ordered from Boeing. In May 2022, Lufthansa ordered seven 787-9s under an agreement with Boeing to compensate for capacity gaps created by delivery delays to the in-development 777-9, the airline said at the time. The seven Dreamliners, "available at short notice because of a cancelled order", are scheduled for delivery in 2025 and 2026, Lufthansa says. Delivery of some 787s previously ordered by Lufthansa has meanwhile been brought forward, to 2023 and 2024. Boeing data shows the seven 787-9s ordered in 2022 will be Trent-powered. The latest batch of seven 787 orders is part of a broader fleet-renewal effort and additionally includes orders for 10 Airbus A350-1000s and five A350-900s. Rolls-Royce's Trent XWB is the sole powerplant available on the A350. The UK engine maker declined to comment on the prospects of potential further Trent 1000 sales for Lufthansa's 787 fleet. Lufthansa has options on 20 787s in addition to its on-order Dreamliners.

Cathay Pacific Group returned 24 more aircraft from long-term storage during the second half of 2022 and plans to reactivate more "in line with operational requirements". The Hong Kong-based airline group said it had 41 passenger aircraft parked outside Hong Kong at the end of 2022, after the reactivations. This compares to the 69 passenger jets parked at the end of June, according to an interim results update. The difference of four fewer jets returned from storage indicates that some parked jets have been permanently retired, likely some of the oldest aircraft in the fleet. Fleets data indicates that the group's oldest aircraft are its Airbus A330-300s, A300-600Fs, Boeing 777-300s and some A320ceo family jets, all above 20 years old and largely listed as in storage.
The group ended the year with a fleet of 222 aircraft, six fewer than at the end of June. From Cathay's fleet, these include the exit of one A320ceo, one A321ceo and eight A330-300s as well as the introduction of three A350-1000s, and the addition of an A330-300P2F to Air Hong Kong's fleet. In terms of new aircraft deliveries this year, the group received two A321neos in February, and expects to take deliveries of nine more jets. Three A321neos and two A350-900s are slated for Cathay's fleet and four A321neos for HK Express. The group took delivery of just five new aircraft in 2022. Cathay has completed refitting the seats of four 777-300ERs that were temporarily used as freighters, and will complete the remaining two in 2023.

US Federal Aviation Administration acting chief Billy Nolen told lawmakers that the agency has implemented “over 60% of the requirements” mandated by Congress in late 2020 intended to improve aircraft safety certification and regulatory scrutiny for manufacturers in the wake of two fatal Boeing 737 Max crashes. Lawmakers voiced concerns about the ongoing implementation on 8 March, during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Nolen and the senators observed that 157 people died nearly four years earlier on 10 March, 2019, during the Max aircraft crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. Referring to this grim anniversary and the subsequent 18-month congressional investigation of FAA oversight of Boeing that resulted in the 2020 certification law, the committee’s ranking Republican senator Ted Cruz says “aviation safety regulations have been written in blood”. Thanking the relatives of Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crash victims for their “advocacy for aviation safety”, Nolen says the FAA is “hiring new talent who understand the safety implications of new and innovative technologies” as required by the legislation enacted in 2020, called the Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act. This agency recruitment, he adds, includes a goal of hiring 300 new aircraft safety personnel by September. Since the passage of the 2020 law, he says the FAA has boosted the staff assigned to provide safety oversight of Boeing from 82 to 107. Boeing declined request for comment. The committee plans to schedule several additional hearings as US lawmakers every five years pass an FAA reauthorisation bill to set funding and priorities for the agency. Committee chair senator Maria Cantwell says that FAA workforce training and recruitment “will be a very big part of the discussion” before the current FAA legislation enacted in 2018 expires on 30 September. The FAA faces a backlog implementing numerous rules, senator Ted Budd noted, adding that some pending rules were mandated by Congress more than a decade ago. Addressing this slow pace, Nolen referred to the “methodical” rulemaking processes including cost-benefit analysis and public comments, adding that despite this “we continue to look for ways to streamline our own internal processes”. Requirements set by the 2020 aviation safety law include that FAA must conduct greater of oversight of organisation delegation authorisation (ODA) units that designate parts of information gathering for the certification process to engineers employed by airframers, including an independent review of Boeing’s safety culture and ODA process. The law also requires greater protection and encouragement for whistle-blowers who raise concerns about safety during a certification process by authorising “civil penalties against aviation manufacturer supervisors who interfere with or place undue pressure on other employees who are empowered to act as FAA designees” during the ODA process.