Jetstar Japan plans to begin operating its second Airbus A321LR on domestic routes from November. The aircraft, bearing registration number JA27LR, will depart from Hamburg on 28 October, making stops in Abu Dhabi and Hanoi before its scheduled arrival at Tokyo Narita on 31 October, the low-cost carrier said in a 24 October statement.
Fleet data indicates that the 238-seat jet (MSN 10146) is the second A321LR in its fleet. It was delivered in October 2021 and has been parked since. The data also shows Jetstar Japan has two other examples in its fleet. The first, registered JA26LR (MSN 10067), was delivered December 2020 and entered service in June. A third, registered JA28LR (MSN 10645) was delivered in end August. All three A321LRs are powered by CFM International LEAP-1A32 engines and managed by AerCap. Jetstar Japan says it will deploy JA27LR on twice-daily return services from Tokyo Narita to New Chitose and Fukuoka from 11 November, which are currently operated solely by its first A321LR, registered JA26LR. The low-cost carrier also operates daily return services from Tokyo Narita to Naha. The second aircraft will enable the airline to boost seat capacity on flights to Fukuoka and Naha during the winter season by "approximately 5%".

Alaska Airlines has expanded its Boeing 737 Max order by exercising options on 42 Max 10s and 10 Max 9s, the airframer confirms. With the new agreement, the US carrier has unfilled orders for more than 100 Max jets, notes Boeing. Alaska specifies that its confirmed Max fleet has grown from 94 to 146 – including 35 Max 9s already in service – and that its orders span all three variants: the Max 8 as well as the 9 and10. The airline says it has also secured rights on 105 more Max jets, giving it "line of sight to operating more than 250... by 2030". Fleets data shows that, in addition to the 35 Max 9s, Alaska operates 169 737NGs, 10 Airbus A321neos and 25 A320ceos. It has another six A320ceos in storage, along with six A319ceos. The airline declares itself "on track to sunset Airbus aircraft by the end of 2023". Alaska's Max 9s are configured with 178 seats. The Max 10 can seat 204 passengers in a two-class configuration and offers a range of 3,100nm.

Ryanair's apparent status as a structural winner out of the pandemic is reinforced by Eurocontrol data showing that the low-cost carrier operated just over 10% of European services during the first nine months of the year. The data, contained in a snapshot issued by the air traffic manager, equates to a capacity increase of 9% on 2019. This gives Ryanair a capacity share nearly twice that of the second largest airline in Europe by number of flights, EasyJet. the UK carrier's number of flights was down 21% versus the same period in 2019. Beyond Ryanair, the only other large European airline to have increased its capacity since 2019 is Wizz Air. The central European budget airline's number of flights rose 12% and it accounted for 2.6% of European services. Meanwhile, the largest declines were at Norwegian, down 46%; SAS and Eurowings, both down 37%; British Airways, down 32%; and Lufthansa, down 31%. Eurocontrol’s data also serves to underline the growth in low-cost airlines over the past 30 years. Their market share has expanded from 1.6% in 1998 to 33% in 2022's first nine months as they benefited from the liberalisation of the European air transport market. "LCCs reacted rapidly to variations in demand, cutting harder but recovering more swiftly," notes Eurocontrol. "For the months January to September, the LCC segment grew from 31.9% in 2019 to 32.5% in 2022. In particular, Ryanair and Wizz Air quickly exploited the high demand for intra-European leisure traffic and expanded operations to 109% and 112% of their respective 2019 levels."