Rising fuel price has pushed Qantas Group to cut domestic capacity even though the network continues to show strong demand across all categories. “Fuel prices have kept rising over the past month and require the group to rebalance capacity and fares in response,” Qantas says in a statement today. It plans to cut July and August capacity further, from 107% of pre-Covid-19 levels to 103%, and will adjust capacity according to market conditions. “These adjustments are not expected to materially impact customers due to the large number of flights on most routes… In practical terms, these changes will generally lead to a higher seat factor on flights across the group.”

Virgin Atlantic will reinstate flights to Cape Town from London Heathrow on 5 November. Daily flights on the route to the South African city will be operated with Boeing 787-9s until 24 March 2023, the UK carrier airline says. Chief commercial officer Juha Jarvinen states: "Although a little later than we would have liked due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the move reflects the fact that travel is recovering and global demand for holidays to sunny destinations is returning at pace." "We are expecting a high proportion of leisure travellers on this route," Jarvinen adds. Virgin additionally operates year-round daily flights to Johannesburg.

Climate groups are launching legal action against KLM over advertising that activists claim "greenwashes" the Dutch airline's environmental impact. As part of parent group Air France-KLM's annual general meeting, held on 24 May, a member of climate action group Fossielvrij Netherlands spoke out to highlight KLM's 'Fly Responsibly' advertising campaign, under which the airline says it recognises "the urgent need to limit global warming and thus have committed to the targets defined in the Paris Climate Agreement" and that its actions contribute to a "more sustainable tomorrow." "In your marketing you tell us that if we fly with KLM we help create a more sustainable future... You and I both know we need to rapidly reduce emissions or there won't be a liveable future for any of us," said the activist, adding that KLM's proposed solutions "won't make flying sustainable". "After this meeting, I would like to hand over this envelope to you personally. It contains a legal letter from the movement I am part of, Fossielvrij Netherlands, together with lawyers from ClientEarth, demanding that KLM stops its misleading ads. And if you won't stop, we will see you in court." KLM chief executive Pieter Elbers replied that the airline was a leading carrier when it came to reducing its emissions, including through the use of sustainable aviation fuels. In a statement, Fossielvrij Netherlands says the legal action was spurred by its conviction that KLM's marketing distracts from the need to reduce overall air traffic. This appears to be the first time an airline has been threatened with a legal process over alleged 'greenwashing', whereby a party seek to deflect attention from its environmental performance with gimmicks that result in little or no carbon reduction. A later questioner said the Fly Responsibly campaign had so enraged her that she left her job to work for free with Fossielvrij Netherlands in order to work towards a ban on all fossil-fuel advertising. She accused KLM of trying to "make it look like flying is normal and doesn’t contribute to the climate crisis", adding: "We want a ban against all airline advertising, just like tobacco." Elbers, having been urged to commit that KLM would not lobby against a ban on advertising by fossil-fuel companies, responded that KLM was "committed to reduce our environmental impact and we will continue to do so". Last month, the Dutch advertising watchdog ruled that KLM ads using terms such as "CO2ZERO" and "CO2-neutral" were misleading for consumers.