Regional carrier Air Wisconsin Airlines has agreed a five-year capacity-purchase deal with American Airlines and will begin providing up to 60 CRJ200s to the US major once its existing capacity-purchase deal with United Airlines terminates.
Up to 40 CRJ200s regional aircraft will initially be covered by the agreement, with a certain number of aircraft becoming available to American each month commencing in March 2023 and continuing through October 2023, Air Wisconsin states in a 19 August Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The Air Wisconsin flights will be operated as part of the American Eagle regional network, and are set to be available for sale in the next few months. American's finance chief Derek Kerr told employees in a 22 August memo disclosed to Cirium that "Air Wisconsin’s fleet of up to 60 Bombardier CRJ200 aircraft will start to enter service no later than March 2023, with most of the flying focused on connecting customers to our Chicago O'Hare hub". Kerr adds: "You’ve likely seen headlines in recent months about a regional pilot shortage affecting the US airline industry... Today, we're excited to announce that we’re taking another important step to strengthen our network by welcoming Air Wisconsin Airlines to the American Eagle portfolio of regional airline partners… Our wholly owned and partner regional carriers strengthen our network by providing safe, reliable and convenient service from small- and medium-size communities to our hubs." American's capacity has been restricted by a shortage of pilots, particularly at its regional carriers. Its three wholly owned regional carriers – PSA Airlines, Piedmont Airlines and Envoy Air – in June successfully renegotiated contract terms with the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), resulting in higher pilot wages. Air Wisconsin says that it "will continue to operate for United until we transition our fleet to American in 2023". United's agreement with Air Wisconsin runs through February 2023. Air Wisconsin currently operates 56 in-service 50-seat CRJ200s for United Express, and has eight in storage, Cirium fleets data shows. The 64 Air Wisconsin CRJ200s have an average age of 19.9 years and represent 10% of United Express's fleet of 633 aircraft. In June 2021, United ordered 200 narrowbodies from Boeing and 70 from Airbus as part of an overall fleet upgauge programme. At the time, United said that during the next few years it would be adding to its fleet a mix of previously ordered and just-ordered 500 narrowbodies. Some 300 of the 500 incoming narrowbodies will replace aircraft the carrier will soon retire. "One of our highest priorities with that new fleet is to retire 200-plus 50-seat, single-class regional jets in the coming year," United's chief commercial officer Andrew Nocella said on 28 June 2021. "We're still going to fly 50-seat jets to small communities throughout the country to make sure they're connected to our global hub network, but we're no longer going to use small jets to fly to large communities. We're now going to have large aircraft that can do that." United did not indicate in June 2021 which 200 of its 50-seat, single-class jets operated by United Express it was targeting for either retirement or for removal from its regional network. United has had the option of terminating its contracts with its United Express capacity providers for some of those 50-seaters or of letting the contracts expire as scheduled. Nocella reaffirmed during an earnings call on 21 July 2022 that "service to small communities will have less frequency, but bigger aircraft". "We look at the profitability by aircraft type and what we need to do to hit our financial targets. We will simply have a different-shaped network in 2026 than we did in 2018 or 2019." Framing the termination of its capacity-purchase deal with Air Wisconsin as a "decision", United tells Cirium that the move "is consistent with our previously announced United Next growth strategy, where we plan to fly more, larger narrowbody aircraft within our domestic network", and that it expects Air Wisconsin "will continue to fly as a United Express carrier into 2023".

China's civil aviation regulator has offered to slightly increase its allocation of passenger flights between the country and Thailand from September. The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) says the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has proposed to allocate "up to 15 flights per week" each on flights entering and departing China, up from the three weekly flights currently, according to an 18 August notice by the Thai authority. The CAAC has asked the CAAT to provide a flight plan for Thai carriers seeking to operate the flights to China to enable it to check the readiness of Chinese airports to support the flights. According to the notice, China does not currently allow additional flights to certain cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou due to limited capacity and these are instead directed to other Chinese cities. The CAAT has invited Thai carriers to a consultation on the allocation of routes with the view to submit a flight plan to the CAAC "within the next week", which "may be accepted by CAAC by the end of September". Thai airlines are expected to start operating the flights from September onwards. Data shows that flights entering China from Thailand averaged about 1,300 flights per week throughout 2019. Amid the pandemic, the number fell to about 19 weekly flights over April-December 2020 and even further to eight throughout 2021. This has since returned to about 18 in the first half of 2022, and were mainly operated by Chinese carriers, with Thai Lion Air, Thai VietJet and Thai Airways the only three Thai carriers to operate to China during the period. For the remainder of the year, airlines' schedules indicate less than 10 flights for the July to October period, and about 110 flights for November and December. Thai carriers operating these flights include Thai VietJet, Thai AirAsia, Thai Airways and Thai Lion Air. Previously, China agreed in August to re-establish two-way passenger flights with the UK, ending a more than two-year ban amid the pandemic.

Latvian carrier Air Baltic is evaluating the potential introduction of up to five Airbus A321XLRs as a first step to establishing long-haul operations. Chief executive Martin Gauss advised that Air Baltic is looking at narrowbodies that can operate longer routes than its all-A220-300 fleet. "As we can already fly seven-plus hours, the normal A320[neo] would not do much more. So therefore, only the XLR can do more," he says, adding: "We always had that [long-haul] in mind, but we don't want to go to widebodies. We believe that we can do best what we do [today]. That's why the XLR now is in discussion." Introduction of long-haul-capable narrowbodies would not represent a strategic change for the carrier, in Gauss's view. "We are not changing our plan to go to the full A220 fleet and keep a simplified business model. So that is not comprised. It would be something new." Data shows that Air Baltic has 36 A220-300s and is scheduled to receive another 14 by 2024. The carrier holds options and purchase rights on a further 30 A220s. Gauss does not rule out converting options to the A321XLR: "Everything is possible today." But he adds that the talks with Airbus are not at that stage yet. They cover aircraft performance, delivery slots and availability at leasing companies. "The lead time for this new aircraft are normally two to three years when it is available, and therefore we will have to look at it now if we in the future want to do something." As a potential alternative, Air Baltic is looking at the A321LR, which entered service in 2018. "Maybe that is enough. First numbers show not, but we are in discussions to see if that is a future aircraft for us,” says Gauss. Airbus targets certification of the A321XLR in 2024. Air Baltic envisions a need for three to five aircraft to serve an initial set of long-haul destinations, Gauss says, adding: "That would be the start of it, and then of course you build on it." The talks with Airbus on long-haul ambitions are not exclusive. "Let’' see what Boeing has on offer to do such an operation," he says. In any case, a long-haul aircraft order would depend on state-owned Air Baltic's plan to become a publicly listed company, because it cannot count on the government to grow its fleet beyond aircraft currently on order. "We need to go to stock exchange to return the money to the Latvian state," Gauss says. "We need to have the equity available to us to be able to invest, and then we would exercise options and continue the business model. "The first target now [is] to get to 50 aircraft, do the IPO and in line with that we would be announcing the new orders, whatever it will be, or exercising the options." Air Baltic's last A220 delivery is scheduled for 2024. "We cannot stop and say this was it for Air Baltic," says Gauss.