The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has preliminarily found that the unintentional deletion of files during system synchronisation caused the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) outage on 11 January that briefly grounded thousands of domestic departures. In its preliminary review of the incident, the FAA has determined that the outage of the NOTAM system was because "contract personnel unintentionally deleted files while working to correct synchronisation between the live primary database and a backup database". The agency says it "has so far found no evidence of a cyber-attack or malicious intent". "The FAA made the necessary repairs to the system and has taken steps to make the NOTAM system more resilient. The agency is acting quickly to adopt any other lessons learned in our efforts to ensure the continuing robustness of the nation’s air traffic control system," it states. Thousands of domestic flights across the USA were delayed on the morning of 11 January after the FAA briefly suspended domestic departures due to an overnight outage to its NOTAM system, which provides safety information to flight crews. The FAA had initially suspended all domestic departures for a nearly two-hour period, until 09:00 ET, after failing to resolve the glitch, but the ground stop was lifted shortly after at 08:50 ET.

Airbus is predicting a shortage of new widebodies amid a faster-than-expected recovery in long-haul travel. Mark Pearman Wright – the European airframer's head of marketing, aircraft investors – said at the Airline Economics Growth Frontiers conference in Dublin on 17 January that China's sudden departure from its zero-Covid policy in late 2022 was poised to add pressure to the situation. "My personal view was probably a bit more cautious than the speed we are seeing today of China opening up. I think we are going to see a shortage of recovery of widebody aircraft... more dramatic than what we were seeing even a couple of months ago." He says that the long-haul market has recovered faster than was predicted during the early phases of pandemic. As new widebody supply by Airbus and Boeing is "fairly stable", Pearman Wright expects that airlines will mainly depend on reactivating stored aircraft to grow capacity. If long-haul flight activity reaches pre-pandemic levels in 2025, he estimates that airlines will require "at least" half of the widebodies stored amid the pandemic. "Much more" capacity will be required if the long-haul market has fully recovered by 2024, he adds. Widebodies' greater programme complexity makes it more difficult to increase their production than is the case with single-aisles, Pearman Wright notes. In 2022, Airbus laid out a plan to increase A350 production to six per month, from five, early this year. A330 output, meanwhile, stands at three per month. During a 10 January press briefing, chief commercial officer Christian Scherer expressed confidence in the sales prospects for long-haul aircraft and asserted that "the global sentiment on widebodies is rather positive". He added: "I feel pretty good about the widebody." Airbus is likely to give an update on its production outlook when it discloses financial results for the full year 2022 on 16 February.

Lufthansa has made an offer to the Italian government to take a minority stake in ITA plus options to acquire the remainder of the company at a later date. The German group says it made an approach to the Italian ministry of economy and finance today, seeking a memorandum of understanding that would lead to exclusive negotiations. "The plan is to agree on the initial acquisition of a minority stake as well as on options to purchase the remaining shares at a later date," says Lufthansa. Talks would focus on the possibility of an equity investment in ITA, as well as the commercial and operational integration of the Italian airline into Lufthansa Group. Implementation of this would be subject to regulatory approval, notes Lufthansa. "For Lufthansa Group, Italy is the most important market outside of its home markets and the US," says the group. "Italy's importance for both business and private travel lies in its strong export-oriented economy and status as one of Europe's top vacation spots." In September 2022, a report by online news service Affari Italiani indicated that the new Italian government led by prime minister Giorgia Meloni would move forward with the sale process for ITA, after previously expressing doubt about the transaction. US-based investment fund Certares had been selected by the previous Italian government as the sole bidder for a majority stake in the company. Exclusive negotiations with the fund later ended without agreement. ITA was launched as a successor to former flag carrier Alitalia in October 2021, taking on much of its fleet, staff, branding and other assets.