TAP Air Portugal is running a reduced flight schedule because of a two-day strike by cabin crew members. The airline had warned last month that it would have to cancel 360 flights on 8 and 9 December due to planned strike action by cabin crew members represented by the SNPVAC union. In a recent Twitter post, TAP says that in addition to the pre-planned flight cancellations, "some disruption in the network is expected" during the two days of industrial action. The union is unhappy with a new collective labour agreement (CLA) proposed by the airline for its cabin crew members. TAP claims that it "presented the SNPVAC with concrete proposals which would justify not going on strike and which would be of great benefit to cabin crew members, but the SNPVAC did not want to present them to its members". The airline adds: "Considering that the last full revision of the company agreement for cabin crew took place in 2006 and must be updated, TAP has submitted a new negotiating proposal to the SNPVAC for negotiation. The proposal in question, however, as is normal in a process of this nature, is only a basic proposal for negotiation purposes." In a message on its Facebook page, SNPVAC describes the CLA proposed by TAP as "disrespectful", alleging that it would result in an average pre-tax salary cut of €400 ($422), rising to €1,200 for cabin supervisors. The union adds that it is "very likely" further strikes will be called in the future.

Air Madagascar has ordered three Embraer E190-E2s. Madagascar's president, Andry Rajoelina, announced the selection of the type during a ceremony in the capital Antananarivo on 7 December, Theo Wensink, airline marketing manager at Embraer said in a LinkedIn post. The first aircraft will join Air Madagascar's fleet in 2023, with two more to follow, he adds. The aircraft will be deployed on domestic routes and also have the range to operate regional connections, flying as far as Dubai, Wensink states.

Chief executives at US majors Southwest Airlines and United Airlines disclosed this week that their bookings data has not shown evidence of a recession in the USA, or even a hint of one on the horizon. Southwest’s chief executive Bob Jordan acknowledges the question he is asked most by financial analysts: “Are we going to have a recession?” “What I would say is we don’t know,” Jordan said on 8 December during an event in New York hosted by the Wings Club. “We are already planning for very, very tepid growth in GDP.” Contingency planning at Southwest, however, is not based on data showing that a recession is looming. Jordan says that leisure demand “especially is really strong” and business demand is recovering. "We're coming into 2023 with a lot of momentum," he says. "We have visibility for 90 days. Obviously [we have visibility in] December, and [we have] good visibility into the bookings in January, February and March, and we see no weakness. No weakness at all. That doesn't mean [a recession is] not coming. But there's no weakness in anything that we see in the booking trends." United's chief executive Scott Kirby on 6 December noted during an interview on the CNBC TV show Squaw Box that the USA is "probably going to have a mild recession induced by the [Federal Reserve]". Asked if has seen any sign that demand is weakening because of a real or imagined recession in play or on the horizon, Kirby responds: "None." ”I spent the weekend here in DC and when I talked to people in politics I started saying if I didn’t watch CNBC in the morning the word ‘recession’ wouldn’t be in my vocabulary, just looking at our data,” Kirby adds. “You just can’t see it in our data.” Demand for business travel has "plateaued", Kirby says, qualifying that by saying that it is difficult to define business travel in a hybrid-work landscape where the lines between leisure and business travel are blurred. "Our total revenues are still going up… we're basically back to 2019 profit margins, which was near an all-time high for us." Southwest's Jordan strikes a similarly upbeat tone: "We had record revenues and profits in the second quarter. We had record revenues and terrific profits in the third quarter. We're going to have a great fourth quarter. We want to take that momentum into 2023. Sitting here just a short time after Covid ­– and it's all a plan – but our plan would say that we have a chance to match our pre-pandemic net income in 2023." Straying from what the hard data is telling him toward mere speculation, Jordan says: "Is there a recession on the horizon? Hard to tell. What would the severity be? Hard to tell. What about fuel prices? Hard to tell."