South African Airways (SAA) is bringing into service an additional three Airbus A320s, taking the total number of A320s to five to support the high-capacity demand. The first of these was delivered on 25 September and the rest will be delivered every month from thence, says the Johannesburg-based carrier. Currently, the airline operates seven Airbus aircraft, consisting of two A320s, three A319s, one A330-300 and one A340-300. Chief commercial officer Tebogo Tsima states: "SAA is replacing its A340-300 with a similar capacity aircraft and will exit the A319 fleet in 2023." "As we increase fleet size to match the needs of the growing network schedule, we are encouraged that our strategy to cautiously re-enter markets abandoned due to the Covid pandemic has served us very well during the past 12 months and we will continue to follow that cautious risk-adjusted trajectory," he adds. Over the last two weeks, SAA has increased the aircraft size on its two routes, Cape Town and Harare. The Harare-Johannesburg route is now serviced by the A330 aircraft on three of its seven-day weekly frequencies.

Airbus delivered 55 commercial aircraft to 31 customers last month, while booking 13 orders. Deliveries – up from 40 in September 2021, and 39 in August 2022 – included 46 single-aisles: 23 A320neos, 18 A321neos, four A220-300s and one A319neo, the European airframer's latest orders and deliveries data shows. From its widebody lines, Airbus delivered two A330-800s (to Kuwait Airways), three A330-900s (one to ALC on behalf of Starlux Airlines and two to Delta Air Lines), three A350-900s (two to Iberia and one to Air France) and one A350-1000 (to Cathay Pacific). At 30 September, the airframer's net deliveries for the year stood at 435, excluding two A350-900s recorded as delivered to Aeroflot in December 2021 but for which a transfer was not possible. Airbus targets 700 deliveries for this year. The 13 orders booked in September comprise those from Sichuan Airlines for three A320neos and three A321neos, from two undisclosed customers' orders for two A330-900s and four A321neos respectively, and from a private customer for one A320neo. Air Cote d'Ivoire cancelled its last remaining orders with Airbus, for two A319neos. Macquarie AirFinance reduced its A220-300 orders by one to 28. The Australian lessor additionally has 20 A320neos on order. Ibom Air switched six A220-100 orders to the -300 variant. All of the Nigerian carrier's 10 A220 orders are now for the larger variant. US-based lessor Azorra Aviation, meanwhile, switched its two A220-100 orders to the -300, Airbus says. These changes have reduced the airframer's A220-100 backlog to 41 aircraft. China Aircraft Leasing (CALC) switched three A320neo orders to the A321neo, and now has 60 and 72 outstanding orders for the two models, respectively.

London Heathrow airport has warned that growing economic headwinds, a rebound in Covid cases and the ongoing situation in Ukraine mean that the outlook for passenger demand could deteriorate into the winter. Yet it expects peak-season travel through the Christmas period to be "very busy" as it continues to bounce back from the operational difficulties faced earlier in the year as passenger demand surged. Having imposed a cap of 100,000 departing passengers per day through the summer in a bid to improve service levels, the airport reports that supply and demand have since been "in balance", adding: "As a result, the vast majority of passengers travelling through Heathrow this summer had a very good experience." As capacity has been rebuilt, in particular at service providers such as baggage handlers, Heathrow now says it will remove the passenger cap at the end of October, replacing it with a "more targeted mechanism, which protects passenger service during peak periods". Chief executive John Holland-Kaye asserts that Heathrow "has grown more in the past 12 months than any airport in Europe. and we've delivered a great passenger experience to the vast majority of travellers". He adds: "I'm proud of the way our team has worked with airlines and their ground handlers to get 18 million passengers successfully away this summer. "While we face many economic headwinds, as well as the legacy of Covid, our aim is to get back to full capacity and the world-class service people should expect from the UK's hub airport as soon as possible." The airport is currently awaiting a long-term funding settlement from the UK government that will decide how much it can charge airlines for the period to 2026. It had previously been instructed to reduce its charges to airlines from its current level of £30.19 ($33.40) per passenger to £26.31 by that point, having sought an increase as high as £43 – a request that came in for heavy criticism from airlines. Data for September shows that Heathrow processed around 5.8 million passengers during the month, 15% fewer than three years previously but up from 2.6 million last year.