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.

American Airlines’ new chief executive Robert Isom is confident that his carrier’s “Northeast alliance” with JetBlue will survive a regulatory challenge, saying in an on-stage interview today: “We are going to prevail.” “We truly are coming together in a way that forms a real competition for entrenched positions, something that we couldn’t do on our own,” he said at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference on 3 June. “And on top of that, it’s something that, given that we’ve been working on it for a number of months, it’s proving itself out,” Isom says. “I feel good about where we are and JetBlue has been a fantastic partner and at the same time an incredible competitor in those places where we don’t align interests.” The US Department of Justice on 21 September 2021 filed a civil lawsuit in the US District Court for Massachusetts to block the partnership that American Airlines and JetBlue Airways call their "Northeast alliance", following concerns voiced by other airlines about the codeshare focused on Boston and New York. Attorneys general in six states and the District of Columbia joined the Justice department in alleging that the partnership "will not only eliminate important competition in these cities, but will also harm air travellers across the country by significantly diminishing JetBlue's incentive to compete with American elsewhere, further consolidating an already highly concentrated industry. American at the time called the federal lawsuit "misguided", arguing that the alliance that launched in February 2021 brought 58 new routes and increased frequencies to New York and Boston. During the on-stage interview on 6 June 2022, Isom told moderator David Vernon, a senior analyst at Bernstein, that he did not know what the controversy was about. "When you ask that question, I don't know, but I do know that we are going to prevail, and I do know that this is something that the facts prove it out," he said, in response to Vernon's question about why the alliance was viewed as controversial. Isom said American has no alternative plans to the Northeast alliance and that JetBlue is also committed to the alliance. "They've committed that the Northeast alliance is something they want to be part of long, long in the future and that's what's important to me," he said. Isom added that the alliance came about because his airline has been historically challenged in the East Coast in both New York and Boston. "In New York, we've had a position where the kind of network that we have been able to fly has been inferior to that which our two largest competitors, Delta and United, have been able to do at a much greater level," he said. He added: "So working with JetBlue and seeing their needs as well as being a very constrained carrier and a third or a fourth competitor to the entrenched carriers, what we have been able to do is really come together and offer a product that is a true third competitor. "And the proof is that we have been able to launch more routes, more frequencies, more cities, and there has been tremendous customer approval for every step that we take."