Flair Airlines plans to lease 14 additional Boeing 737 Max 8's aircraft to complement the nine it has in service and four on order. The Canadian ultra-low-cost carrier provided no details on plans for the Max leases, but has set out a timetable for its planned fleet growth. Flair has three 737NG's in service, along with the nine Max 8's, fleets data shows. The listed owner of the four on-order Max 8's is 777 Partners, a 25% shareholder in Flair from which the airline in January disclosed plans to lease 13 Max 8's. Edmonton-based Flair expects to have 20 aircraft in total by summer 2022 and 30 by mid-2023, and says "additional aircraft will arrive in 2023" as it "more than doubles its current fleet size as part of the airline’s vision to have a fleet of 50 aircraft by 2025". Flair is focusing on the Max because its fuel efficiency offers low passenger-mile cost and reduced carbon emissions, chief executive Stephen Jones said during a virtual press conference on 14 December. Leasing additional Max aircraft is both a show of faith in Boeing and a sign of optimism in recovering Canadian travel demand as Flair aims to expand in the face of growing competition. The ULCC flies to 32 destinations across Canada and the USA, and plans to add Mexico to its network in February. Expanding into the Caribbean would be "the natural next step" for the airline once it starts flying to sun destinations in Mexico, Flair chief commercial officer Garth Lund said during the press conference. Flair has no scheduled routes to New York, but Jones says "it won't be long" before the airline adds that destination to its network. Growth of the ULCC sector in Canada has been limited by the lack of smaller, secondary airports that offer lower costs for airlines compared with big hubs. Lund says Flair is "a first mover" in Canada's growing low-cost market, giving it a good position to compete with low-fare flights on routes that have traditionally been high-cost. "There has been a lot of demand particularly on transcontinental services", with low fares on some routes including Toronto to Vancouver, Lund notes. "We see very good demand" in Toronto, he adds, ahead of the airline's planned expansion there in 2022. Flair and its existing ULCC competitor WestJet subsidiary Swoop will have to face off against new low-cost start-ups next year. Lynx Air, rebranded as a ULCC from Enerjet, aims to launch during the first quarter of 2022 with a fleet of three Max 8's and routes to be announced in the coming months. Canada Jetlines also plans to launch during the first quarter of 2022. While joking that "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery", in reference to Lynx's aim to launch with a fleet of Max 8's, Jones says the "Canadian market needs good, strong, low-cost competition". Lund predicts that as ULCC competition grows "you will probably see some of the high-cost competitors focus on more high-yield markets". As for whether demand for low-cost travel in Canada can grow to help sustain the launch of new routes from multiple ULCCs, Lund says: "I am not sure all of [the airlines] are going to survive." However, he is confident that Flair is well-positioned for more competition. Flair plans to accelerate its fleet growth as the spread of Covid-19's Omicron variant adds uncertainty to international travel. Canada reports that 76% of its population is fully vaccinated against Covid-19, compared with 60% of people in the USA. Progress on vaccination drove Ottawa to loosen restrictions on non-essential travel from the USA in August, prior to lifting restrictions in September for all international arrivals. Boeing has resumed deliveries of Max jets to Canada since that nation lifted its grounding of the aircraft in January. Flair's Miami-based part-owner 777 Partners has ordered 68 Max jets from Boeing during 2021.

Garuda Indonesia's creditors have just over three weeks to file debt claims against the airline, following a Jakarta court's decision to grant a temporary suspension of debt-payment obligations. The court has set 6 January, 17:00 local time, as the deadline for creditors to file their claims, according to a 14 December announcement from Garuda placed in three local newspapers. The announcement outlines the key milestones and deadlines that the court has set for Garuda and its creditors. It also names Dulhusin as the judge appointed to supervise the process, as well as six administrators: Jandri Siadari, Martin Patrick Nagel, Albert Hasoloan Limbong, Asri, Mulyadi and William Eduard Daniel. The court's 9 December decision to allow the temporary suspension of debt-payment obligations (PKPU) gives Garuda 45 days to submit a "composition plan that includes the restructuring of Garuda's business obligations to creditors". The supervisory judge has scheduled on 24 January a "deliberation meeting" of a panel of judges to decide on the case. Leading up to the deliberation meeting, the supervisory judge has set three meetings on various matters. These include a 21 December meeting to determine the schedule for the first creditors' meeting, a 20 January creditors' meeting for tax verification and receivables matching, and a meeting on 21 January to determine the schedule for the hearing to discuss and vote on the composition plan and/or a proposed PKPU extension.

The UK government will remove all 11 countries from its travel red list at 04:00 local time on 15 December. All existing Covid-19 testing requirements will remain in place and will be reviewed in the first week of January, UK health secretary Sajid Javid told the House of Commons on 14 December. The move means that from tomorrow, travellers arriving in England from Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe will no longer be required to quarantine in government-appointed hotels. The UK added South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Namibia to its red list on 26 November, following the emergence in South Africa of the Omicron variant of Covid-19. With Omicron now spreading rapidly within the UK, however, the decision has been taken to scrap the red list entirely. Trade association Board of Airline Representatives (BAR UK) has welcomed the move as a "pragmatic" step, and is calling for all travellers from the 11 countries already in quarantine hotels to be released immediately and refunded. It also argues that the testing restrictions are "ineffective" and says a January review is "critical". Airport Operators Association (AOA) chief executive Karen Dee says the removal of all 11 countries from the red list is "a welcome recognition that these measures have little purpose when Omicron is rapidly becoming the dominant variant in the UK". She adds that "it is difficult to understand why the UK and devolved governments did not recognise that the same logic applies to the blanket, expensive and burdensome testing regime".