Brussels Airlines will add two Airbus A320s to its fleet and wet-lease two Bombardier-built CRJ900s from Irish carrier CityJet for the summer 2023 season. The A320s will join Brussels Airlines' fleet permanently and be deployed across its entire medium-haul network, with a focus on new leisure destinations such as Djerba and Monastir in Tunisia, the Lufthansa Group subsidiary says. Under a wet-lease agreement signed in January, the two CityJet CRJ900s will operate for Brussels Airlines from 26 March until 28 October. The regional jets will be deployed for daily flights from Brussels airport to European cities, including Bordeaux and Lyon in France, Milan in Italy, Swiss city Geneva , Austrian capital Vienna, and Copenhagen and Billund in Denmark. The expanded fleet will enable the airline to increase its European operations by 10% this summer, it says. "Our fleet now grows to 36 medium-haul and nine long-haul aircraft," the carrier's head of network strategy and planning Jan Derycke states. "With this fleet and network expansion, Brussels Airlines is achieving its targeted growth three years ahead of schedule."

Hawaiian Airlines has entered into a new agreement to purchase 50 million US gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) over the term of five years, from US renewable fuels producer Gevo. As per the deal, SAF produced by Gevo will be supplied from a facility to be constructed in the Midwestern United States and its deliveries to Hawaiian’s gateway cities will begin in 2029, the US-based carrier says. "This offtake agreement gets us one step closer to achieving our goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050," says Peter Ingram, Hawaiian’s president and chief executive. He adds: "We intend to continue to invest in SAF, which will be pivotal in reducing our impact on the environment," he adds. The carrier has launched several sustainability initiatives including a partnership with Par Hawaii, the state’s largest provider of energy products, to study the commercial viability of producing SAF in Hawaii.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has granted interim authorisation that will allow Qantas and Emirates Airline to extend their alliance as it considers whether to grant it an additional five years. “The interim authorisation commences immediately and allows the parties to continue coordinating their operations while the ACCC considers and evaluates the merits of the substantive application for authorisation,” ACCC commissioner Anna Brakey says. Authorisation for the alliance was granted in 2018 for five years, and was set to expire at the end of March. The two airlines have applied to extend it to 2028, and the ACCC expects to issue a draft authorisation in May. The interim approval allows Qantas and Emirates to jointly coordinate schedules, sales and marketing and yield management functions across their global networks until a final decision is made. Qantas has relied on the Emirates alliance to carry a large amount of traffic from Europe through its partner’s Dubai hub, which complements its own operations to London from Perth and Sydney. Networks data shows that in March Qantas is the largest international carrier from Australia as measured in ASMs, while Emirates is the second largest. By seats operated, however, Emirates is the fifth largest carrier to Australia, behind Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines, Jetstar and Qantas.