LATAM Airlines Brazil has conducted a first international service with its Boeing 787-9, flying the twinjet to Spanish capital Madrid from Sao Paulo Guarulhos airport. From 23 February, the aircraft (registered PS-LAA) will also be deployed on the route connecting Guarulhos and New York JFK, the airline says. It has been operating this 787-9, equipped with Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines, on domestic routes since October, and says it is the first Brazilian airline to operate the type in the country. LATAM Airlines Brazil adds: "In all, up to four Boeing 787-9 aircraft from the LATAM Group fleet in Chile will arrive in Brazil to be crewed by Brazilian pilots and flight attendants, in yet another strong commitment by the company to the recovery of the air sector in the country."

Brazil's Gol expects international flights to contribute about 8% of ASK capacity in 2022, about half the network share pre-pandemic. "We're going to be more of a follower [when it comes to the return of international operations] given the volatility and restrictions that can apply to international destinations," Gol's finance chief Richard Lark said today during an investor presentation in Singapore. This means a "much smaller contribution to EBITDA" from international operations, compared to 15% of ASKs pre-Covid-19, contributing 10% of total revenues and about 5% of EBITDA. Meanwhile on the domestic front, the airline's revenues had in December exceeded 2019 levels for the first time since March 2020, at 9.8% above the corresponding month. This was driven primarily by VFR traffic and Lark says that Gol's large corporate sales reached around 80% of 2019 levels. Gol had conveyed in its November earnings call expectations for a recovery at the end of the first quarter of 2022. This lag in corporate travel, however, has pushed the timeline out to the second half of the 2022, Lark says. Gol expects to recover the remaining 20% of its corporate travel segment "over the next few months". The airline will focus its business network on point-to-point and shuttle flights for clients in industries that have shown the least recovery so far, including the finance sector, Lark says. "We do expect that Gol's utilisation will return to our normalised levels of around 12h a day in the second half."

US president Joe Biden expects that the decision to postpone activation of 5G telecommunication networks in the USA by two weeks will, in addition to ensuring "no disruptions" to flights during the pause, deliver a "substantial" reduction in related delays after 19 January. Wireless providers AT&T and Verizon agreed late on 3 January to push back the planned 5 January 5G C-band deployment by a fortnight, following concerns that it could interfere with radio altimeters on board aircraft. The providers have offered to implement a set of mitigations similar to measures used in some European operating environments for a period of six months around 50 US airports. The US Federal Aviation Administration has said it believes these mitigations "could substantially reduce the disruptions to air operations" – a sentiment that was echoed by President Biden in a 4 January statement. "This agreement [to delay 5G activation by two weeks] ensures that there will be no disruptions to air operations over the next two weeks, and puts us on track to substantially reduce disruptions to air operations when AT&T and Verizon launch 5G on January 19th," states the president. Airlines for America chief executive Nicholas Calio has welcomed the delay and the proposed mitigations, and says the US airline association "will continue to work with all stakeholders to help ensure that new 5G service can co-exist with aviation safely".