Brazilian competition authority CADE has approved Gol's acquisition of regional operator MAP Linhas Aereas. Gol disclosed in June 2021 that it had agreed to acquire MAP for R$28 million ($5 million) in cash and stock. The low-cost carrier intends to substitute MAP's ATR turboprop fleet with larger aircraft. The regional airline's fleet consists of four ATR 42’s and three ATR 72’s, data shows. Gol in September signed a non-binding letter of intent with Irish lessor Avolon to acquire or lease 250 electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft as part of its continuing investment in regional air transport in Brazil.

The US Federal Aviation Administration has disclosed that it will rely on US aviation safety standards to guide its "next actions" while reviewing a 2 January letter from the chief executives of wireless providers AT&T and Verizon in which they apparently refuse the FAA's request to delay the planned 5 January activation of 5G telecommunication networks in the USA.
The FAA and the US Transportation department have expressed concerns that 5G implementation could interfere with radio altimeters on board aircraft. In a joint letter sent on 31 December to AT&T chief executive John Stankey and Verizon chief Hans Vestberg, FAA administrator Steve Dickson and US Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg initially thank them for a previously granted 30-day delay in the activation of 5G C-band service. Six paragraphs later, Dickson and Buttigieg, citing potential disruptions "the traveling public would face from commercial launch of C-band service", ask for a further delay of "no more than two weeks" beyond the scheduled 5 January deployment date. Dickson and Buttigieg in their letter state that the FAA would use the additional delay in January to ensure that "5G deployment and aviation operations can co-exist". The AT&T and Verizon chiefs are unmoved in their 2 January response to Dickson and Buttigieg: "Now, on the evening of New Year’s Eve, just five days before the C-band spectrum will be deployed, we received your letter asking us to take still more voluntary steps – to the detriment of our millions of consumer, business and government customers – to once again assist the aviation industry and the FAA after failing to resolve issues in that costly 30-day delay period, which we never considered to be an initial one." Sidestepping the request for a further delay in 5G implementation, Stankey and Vestberg instead offer to adopt for six months C-band "radio exclusion zones" similar to those being used in France. "That approach – which is one of the most conservative in the world – would include extensive exclusion zones around the runways at certain airports." The FAA notes in its 2 January statement about Stankey and Vestberg's letter that the aviation industry has throughout 2021 "continued to ask for additional collaboration and time in anticipation of the complications we now face".

Aviation Capital Group has delivered one new Boeing 737-8 Max aircraft on long-term lease to Germany’s TUI Group. The aircraft is part of a multi-aircraft transaction between ACG and the airline group, the lessor says in a 30 December statement. The aircraft is powered by CFM International’s Leap-1B engines.