Delta Air Lines has submitted a complaint with the Fulton County Superior Court in Georgia against CrowdStrike in which it alleges that the cybersecurity vendor breached its contractual promises in "a manner that was no less than grossly negligent" amid the technology outage in July that led to the US major cancelling thousands of flights globally. In the lawsuit filed on 25 October, Delta says it is pursuing legal claims against CrowdStrike and Microsoft to recover damages caused by the outage, which the Atlanta-based carrier says total at least $500 million. Delta notes in the court filing: "Since its founding, CrowdStrike has advertised itself as the cybersecurity industry leader. But on July 19, 2024, CrowdStrike forced untested and faulty updates to its customers, causing more than 8.5 million Microsoft Windows-based computers around the world to crash, while also preventing many of them from being able to restart (the 'faulty update')." It adds: "For Delta, the faulty update was catastrophic." A CrowdStrike spokesperson said on 28 October that while it "aimed to reach a business resolution that puts customers first, Delta has chosen a different path". It adds: "Delta's claims are based on disproven misinformation, demonstrate a lack of understanding of how modern cybersecurity works, and reflect a desperate attempt to shift blame for its slow recovery away from its failure to modernise its antiquated IT infrastructure."

United Airlines has unveiled what it calls its "largest winter schedule ever" and is set to operate nearly 4,600 daily flights during peak season, starting 24 October. The US major says it has started services to Marrakesh in Morocco, with three weekly flights from its Newark hub, operated using Boeing 767-300ERs. It will also become the only US carrier to fly to Cebu in the Philippines, with daily flights from Tokyo on a 737-800 aircraft. United is increasing service to Accra in Ghana and Lagos in Nigeria. The carrier has also added more flights to popular southern European destinations, including extended service to Milan and Rome from Chicago and daily flights between Washington/Dulles and Lisbon, continuing through January 2025. In Latin America, United plans to enhance its service to Colombia with new year-round flights to Medellin from Houston, utilising a 737-700 aircraft, and will offer weekly nonstop service to Dominica starting 15 February 2025. The airline is also expanding its Caribbean routes with weekly flights from Newark to St. Kitts, operated by 737-900ERs. Domestically, United's schedule will feature additional flights to ski and sun destinations, including new seasonal weekend service to Bozeman in Montana, and increased connectivity to popular warm-weather locales. The airline will deploy larger Embraer E-175 aircraft for select ski routes, enhancing service to destinations like Aspen in Colorado.

Safran expects to end the year with high inventory levels for the CFM International Leap engine it jointly manufactures with GE Aerospace, amid Boeing's reduced 737 output and the ongoing strike at the airframer. In spite of Boeing's production issues, CFM continues to deliver Leap-1B engines to the airframer and receives from it a proportion of customer pre-delivery payments for 737 orders, Safran chief executive Olivier Andries said during a third-quarter results briefing on 25 October. He notes, however, that the overall number of deliveries to the assembly lines in Seattle is lower than previously anticipated. Safran and GE have reduced their full-year Leap production outlook to around 10% below the 1,570 deliveries of 2023, representing the third downgrade this year. The two manufacturers in February had predicted a 20-25% year-on-year production rise for 2024 but disclosed in April a reduction in the growth target to 10-15% and lowered it again in July, to 0-5%. Leap deliveries in the third quarter declined to 356, from 389 in the July-September period last year. This includes the Leap-1A variant, which is optionally available on Airbus A320neo-family jets. Year-to-date Leap deliveries had reached 1,029 on 30 September, down from 1,174 in 2023's first nine months. Beyond the situation at Boeing, Safran attributes the reduced Leap output to a bottleneck in high-pressure-turbine blade supply. This issue had emerged at a supplier earlier this year and was the prompt for CFM to lower its production outlook in July. Andries says the HPT blade supply has since improved but is still pacing Leap output and also below the required level to maintain CFM's production guidance from July. Both Boeing's Leap demand and the HPT supply issue will contribute to there being, by year-end, a three-digit number of surplus low-pressure Leap systems – the parts Safran produces for CFM. "We could theoretically decide to... basically decrease our inventory next year. But that would impact badly our suppliers," says Andries. "We have decided to soften the impact vis-a-vis our own supply chain because we want to make sure that our suppliers will continue to accompany us for the ramp-up, because the ramp-up will be there for Airbus and will restart on the Boeing side as well." He notes that Safran wants to keep its suppliers "on board and running" and adds: "We have our responsibility with the supply chain." Safran expects that new HPT blades will be certificated for the Leap-1A by year-end and for the Leap-1B by the end of 2025. Designed to double time on wing, the new blade "will not help everything, but it will be a help" to address production bottlenecks, says Andries. He adds that Safran has produced an unspecified volume of new HPT blades ready to ship after certification. Blades will primarily be shipped to MRO providers for insertion in in-service engines. Andries notes that while Leap deliveries to airframers are lossmaking for CFM, the engines' production breaks even overall as spare engines are sold to airlines at a profit.