Finnair presented a relatively sanguine reaction to the closure of Russian airspace as part of its first quarter results, noting that although the move cuts the airline off from much of its north Asian network, it has allowed it to redeploy capacity elsewhere. A key facet of the Helsinki-based airline's normal business model is utilising its geographic location to become a hub between Europe and north Asia, action that has been hit hard by the closure of Russian airspace. But Finnair notes that this has had only a "moderate negative impact" on its overall figures for March, with passenger revenue still growing by over five times since the same period of last year, while available seat kilometres grew by nearly six times. The impact of Russian airspace closure has been muted in large part because of strict Covid-19 policies in parts of Asia means that travel to the region has been relatively subdued compared to the US and Europe anyway. Meanwhile, high cargo yields have enabled it to maintain services to Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai, despite longer flight times. It has also encouraged a pivot towards providing greater long haul services to the US, to which Finnair has seen "clearly strengthened demand" over the first quarter, especially in recent weeks. It opened a new route to Dallas at the end of March and will provide services to Seattle this summer. Finnair has been able to continue serving its destinations to South Asia, where sales are returning despite lengthened flight times. Chief executive Topi Manner notes that its existing Delhi services were seeing a "good degree of demand", ahead of a planned new route to Mumbai, adding: "When you fly [between] India and the US, it makes sense to fly through our Helsinki hub. So we have a competitive advantage for that." Meanwhile in its core market in Europe, ASKs increased by 2,613% on the same quarter of last year. The overall result is that: "Finnair's operating environment is two-sided," the airline explains in its outlook. "In Europe, the United States and South Asia, travel is normalising as the impacts of the pandemic have eased. In contrast, travel restrictions in North Asia, combined with the closed Russian airspace, have a significant impact on Finnair’s operating environment." The Helsinki-based carrier is now preparing for a prolonged Russian airspace closure by making indefinite changes to its operations. As well as updating its network, this encompasses launching a new cost reduction programme targeting €60 million ($64 million) of "permanent savings from distribution, aircraft leases and the continuous improvement of operations," says Manner. "These savings will be on top of the already achieved 200 million euros of permanent annual savings during the pandemic." Finnair will also review its fleet plan including wet leasing three Airbus A350s to Lufthansa and four A321s to British Airways for the summer season. Further wet lease opportunities will be explored as well as the "potential sale" of individual aircraft to reduce idle capacity. During the second and third quarters it expects to operate an average capacity of around 70% compared to 2019. Including those aircraft on wet-lease, total capacity deployed amounts to almost 80%. "Booking behaviour is normalising quite fast," Manner told the company's webcast. "When we look at booking for last couple of weeks, especially Europe, the US and South Asia, we are close to pre-pandemic levels of bookings." Daily flights will increase to more than 300 during the peak season. Despite this, the overall result for the period remained weak, with quarter-on-quarter revenues declining on the back of Omicron resulting in operating losses of €133 million for the period, "mainly driven by the high fuel price and the Omicron impact on costs and demand." Load factors were at 47.3% and liquidity stood at €1.1 billion, including an undrawn €400 million hybrid loan granted to Finnair in March 2021 from the Finnish state, which will now be converted to a capital loan. It estimates losses narrowing in the second quarter, supported by strong sales but hurt by high fuel prices and the reduction in North Asian traffic. "The bookings are coming in," explains Manner. "We are relatively close to pre-pandemic levels for last couple of weeks. We need to remember we are deploying only 70% of capacity for scheduled traffic for the summer, so bookings are higher than pre-pandemic adjusting for capacity," he adds.

Air Canada is using sustainable aviation fuel for four commercial flights departing from San Francisco to its major hubs in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, and Montreal. The carrier says it is sourcing its SAF from renewable fuel producer Neste through its "Leave Less Travel" programme. The aircraft used on these flights include Boeing 737 Max 8, Airbus A220-300 and Mitsubishi CRJ-900. These four flights will allow Air Canada to reduce emissions by approximately 39t of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), compared with the combustion of conventional fossil jet fuel. Air Canada’s senior director, environmental affairs, Teresa Ehman states: “Today we reaffirm our strong, ongoing commitment to sustainable aviation and reaching net-zero GHG emissions by 2050. Air Canada has been involved in the advancement and development of sustainable aviation fuel for a decade and we are proud to continue to lead the way in Canada when it comes to aviation climate action.”

HNA Group has completed its restructuring after more than two years of work that began in 2020, the Chinese conglomerate said on its official WeChat on 23 April. A joint working group was set up on 29 February 2020 to handle the restructuring and that risk disposal work "has basically been completed", the company said in the post Saturday on the popular Chinese social media platform. The four reorganisation plans have been implemented and received court approval, it adds. HNA Group’s creditors in October 2021 voted to approve four plans relating to its restructuring. Of the four parts of HNA Group's restructuring, three relate to its aviation businesses. One of these is related to 321 companies, including some airlines, that were grouped together and treated for the purposes of the restructuring as one company via a legal concept known as "substantive consolidation". Bohai Leasing, a lessor controlled by the group, said in a filing on 24 April to the Shenzhen stock exchange that the reorganisation plan for the substantive merger and reorganisation of the 321 companies including HNA Group “has been completed”. The second involves Hainan Airlines and 10 of its subsidiaries. The implementation of that reorganisation plan was completed on 31 December 2021. The third pertains to HNA Group's airport businesses, while the fourth is not specifically related to aviation. HNA Group said in the WeChat post on 23 April that it “sincerely thanks all parties for their support for the risk disposal work of HNA Group”.