The Hong Kong government has agreed to extend the drawdown period of a HK$7.8 billion ($1 billion) loan facility for Cathay Pacific by a further 12 months. The drawdown period of the facility is now valid until 8 June 2023, the Hong Kong-based carrier says. "Despite the difficult operational environment, we have not had to draw down the facility over the past 12 months," Chief executive officer Augustus Tang says. "The further extension of the drawdown period is greatly appreciated and will provide us with flexibility to manage our liquidity position." The bridge loan facility was provided to Cathay Pacific as part of the HK$39 billion recapitalisation announced on 9 June 2020 "to help the airline maintain its competitiveness and operations amid the industry-wide downturn due to Covid-19", it adds. The airline says its liquidity remains at a "healthy" level, at HK$30.3 billion as of the end of 2021, compared to HK$28.6 billion at the end of 2020. Following the recent adjustments to the government’s travel restrictions and quarantine requirements, Cathay says it is progressively adding back capacity and expects this to have a positive impact on its business. It also aims to reduce operating cash burn to less than HK$500 million per month for the next few months.

Many of Europe's air navigation services providers will have insufficient capacity to cope with surging numbers of fights through the early parts of the peak summer season, air traffic manager Eurocontrol has warned. The organisation says in a 3 June update that that many ANSPs across the continent "need to review their plans as the capacity provided would not be sufficient to cope with the traffic demand". It highlights area control centres in Prague, Reims, Karlsruhe, Athens, Budapest, Skopje and Munich as lacking the ability to meet expected demand from flight activity through June and the first half of July. In addition, Eurocontrol is concerned that some ANSPs risk creating delays for en-route services such as overflights because of a lack of capacity, naming Marseille, Athinai, Macedonia, Budapest, Skopje, Barcelona, and Malmo. Others risk becoming saturated by flight activity, including Vienna, Reims, Macedonia, Lisbon and Zurich. ANSPs are advised to plan for a 10% buffer in the forecast traffic demand to avoid sudden capacity problems. Likewise, the coming six weeks are likely to be "extremely challenging" for the continent's airports, notes Eurocontrol, "with very high passenger demand putting strains of some of those airports' resources. Some airports will have inadequate resources if there is any level of network disruption. Whilst trying their best to process the passengers through the terminal facilities, it is not always possible to achieve on-time departures thereby potentially creating general network instability." The warnings about the sector's ability to deal with forecast flight activity come on the back of steadily rising air passenger capacity forecasts. Eurocontrol now believes that peak traffic will rise to around 32,000 flights per day on Fridays through June, rising above 33,000 on Fridays in July. The overall number of flights being operated is set to rise from around 86% of 2019 levels currently to 89% over the coming six weeks.

Airbus has rolled out a satellite-based landing system (SLS) to its A320 family and delivered the first A320neo equipped for it to UK low-cost carrier EasyJet. The equipment enables pilots to perform straight-in landing approaches in low visibility without using ground-based navigation aids such as an instrument landing system. Airbus says it introduced the SLS on the A350 for Category I precision instrument approaches at European airports in 2015, and has since added the capability to the A330 and A220. Efforts are under way to facilitate SLS landings on A380s too, the airframer adds. Under CAT I, pilots must have the runway in sight at a decision height not lower than 200ft (60m) and with either a visibility of not less than 800m or runway visual range (a separate measure taking into account visibility, background luminance and runway light intensity) of not less than 550m. CAT III is the classification with the lowest visibility requirements, which is further subdivided in three types. Under CAT IIIc, pilots can perform precision instrument approaches and landings with no decision height and no RVR limitations. Airbus aims to develop a new generation of the European satellite-based augmentation system EGNOS by 2027. "SLS users will seamlessly benefit from the increase in performance as the service becomes available at additional European destinations," states Airbus Defence & Space head of telecom and navigation Francois Gaullier. EasyJet director of flight operations David Morgan says the SLS will increase efficiency and reduce fuel burn. "We believe that modernising the aviation sector is a crucial goal requiring the joint and co-ordinated effort of the entire industry," he adds. Airbus credits the European Union Agency for the Space Programme and Commission with providing "excellent support" for development of the SLS.