Europe's air transport regulator has published a safety information bulletin in a bid to mitigate risks arising from airport operational issues amid the strong ramp-up in passenger demand this summer. With passenger numbers now close to pre-pandemic levels in many locations, the European Aviation Safety Agency has issued recommendations which are clustered into four areas: collaboration; occurrence reporting and safety risk management; administrative procedures; and flight-time limitations. EASA is, for example, advising aerodrome operators to increase collaboration with ground-handling service providers, air operators, security-service providers and state agencies to ensure the best use of all available human resources and infrastructure. The agency also proposes that operators apply a collaborative decision-making process with relevant aerodrome stakeholders to identify any emerging operational or capacity issues related to staff shortages, and implement actions to mitigate the impacts.

Ethiopian Airlines has upsized four of on-order Airbus A350s from the -900 to the -1000, becoming Africa's first customer for the largest variant of the widebody family. The Star Alliance member's backlog now consists of four A350-1000s and two A350-900s, it notes. "The A350-1000 is the best fit for our dense routes, and we believe that the upsizing will be instrumental in satisfying the increasing demand of customers in our vast global network across five continents," states group chief executive Mesfin Tasew. Ethiopian has received 16 A350-900s from the 22 it had on order from Airbus. Data shows that the airline has a total of 18 A350-900s in service.

Airbus's commercial aircraft division generated an adjusted EBIT of €2.27 billion ($2.31 billion) in the first half, compared with €2.29 billion in the same period of 2021. The result includes the non-recurring positive impact from retirement obligations recorded in the first quarter, partly offset by the impact of international sanctions against Russia, which reduced in the second quarter following good progress on the remarketing of some aircraft, the European airframer says The net positive impact from these two non-recurring elements was largely offset by a less favorable currency-hedging rate compared with the first half of 2021. Revenue generated by Airbus's commercial aircraft activities declined 2% year on year to €17.5 billion. A total of 297 commercial aircraft were delivered, the same as in the first half of 2021, and comprised 25 A220s, 230 A320-family jets, 13 A330s, and 29 A350s. Gross commercial aircraft orders increased to 442 from 165 the previous year, while net orders of 259 aircraft, after cancellations, compared with just 38 in the first half of 2021. The commercial order backlog amounted to 7,046 aircraft on 30 June 2022. On 30 June, Airbus's gross cash position stood at €21.6 billion, compared with €22.7 billion at the end of 2021, and its consolidated net cash position at €7.2 billion. Liquidity stood at €27.6 billion. Airbus is this year targeting around 700 commercial aircraft deliveries, adjusted EBIT of €5.5 billion, and free cash flow before M&A and customer financing of €3.5 billion.