Delays in Boeing 787 deliveries have prompted American Airlines to scale back its international schedule in 2022. The Fort Worth-based carrier has reversed its decision to restart transatlantic flights to Edinburgh and Shannon. "Continued delivery delays of Boeing 787 aircraft have provided unique challenges in planning international flying months in advance," American states in a 9 December US Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Additionally, American is discontinuing service to Hong Kong, citing soft demand in Asia. The carrier has "also adjusted operations on some existing Asia and South America routes and reduced frequencies". American has 46 Dreamliners in its current fleet and 43 on order. Boeing has delivered one 787 to American this year, in April. Thirteen 787s are to arrive in 2022, but manufacturing issues continue to affect production rates. In a memo to American staff, chief revenue officer Vasu Raja states: "Boeing continues to be unable to deliver the 787s we have on order, including as many as 13 aircraft that were slated to be in our fleet by this winter. "Without these widebodies, we simply won’t be able to fly as much internationally as we had planned next summer or as we did in summer 2019." United Airlines has four 787's on order; Delta Air Lines has no Boeing widebodies on order. Delays in 787 deliveries are having a broad impact across aviation. During a third-quarter results call on 4 November, Air Lease Corporation chief executive John Plueger said the US lessor had originally been scheduled to take 10 new 787's by year-end but was "uncertain" it would receive any.

Manchester Airports Group has already seen passenger numbers fall 10-20% because of the emergence of Covid-19's Omicron variant and the subsequent announcement on 27 November that travellers arriving in the UK must undertake a PCR test. Releasing six-monthly results, UK airport operator MAG notes that the impact of restrictions "has increased further over recent days following the introduction of pre-departure tests this week". The UK government has said the restrictions are "precautionary" and "temporary" measures intended to help slow the spread of the new variant. MAG, which in addition to Manchester owns Stansted and East Midlands airports, is now calling for an urgent review of the government's travel rules, after passenger numbers across the first six months of its financial year to end-September came in 82% below 2019 levels. The company saw a brief window of higher activity when restrictions lifted, reaching 58% of pre-pandemic levels in November, before being sent into reverse by Omicron and the new restrictions. "The first half of this year tells a story of how travel restrictions held back the recovery of UK aviation, especially when compared to the rest of Europe," states MAG chief executive Charlie Cornish. "As restrictions eased, passenger numbers grew steadily at all three of our airports. The reintroduction of costly and inconvenient travel testing requirements has created further uncertainty and delayed our recovery." He adds: "As a business, we will always do our part to protect public health, but we also need these temporary measures to be removed when they are no longer worthwhile." The group saw revenue rise £64.9 million ($85.6 million) year on year, but the total was down 70% on the same period two years ago. MAG made a loss before interest and tax of £75.7 million in the six-month period this year, after a £173 million profit two years earlier.

Airbus is escalating its dispute with Qatar Airways over surface degradation on the A350 aircraft type, seeking an independent legal assessment of the issue in order to resolve the situation. The European airframer asserts that such action is necessary in the face of what it describes as "the ongoing mischaracterisation of non-structural surface degradation" by "one of its customers". Airbus does not name Qatar Airways in its latest statement, but the Middle Eastern airline has repeatedly complained about A350 paint degradation in recent months. Qatar Airways group chief executive Akbar Al Baker said late last month that he could "crucify" the airframer over the issue. "The real cause has not been established," he said at the UK Aviation Club in London on 30 November. "In the beginning, they mentioned that it was only cosmetic… Now they have at last accepted that there are other airlines, several of them, that have the same condition... and yesterday [they] acknowledged that they are working to find a solution, which means they don’t have a solution, and they don't have a solution because they don’t know why it is happening." Airbus, for its part, says the surface-paint-related issue has been thoroughly assessed both internally and by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) as having no airworthiness impact on the A350 fleet, an assessment that has previously been questioned by Al Baker. The airframer argues that to "misrepresent this specific topic as an airworthiness issue" is to challenge international protocols on safety. Airbus sees its move to initiate a legal assessment as necessary "to defend its position and reputation". It adds: "Airbus has worked actively with its customers in order to minimise the impact and any inconvenience caused by this in-service surface degradation on the aircraft. These solutions have all been dismissed by the above-mentioned customer without legitimate justification." In August, Qatar Airways grounded 13 of its A350's on the instruction of its national regulator because of the issue. The airline has now taken 20 of the type out of operation, Al Baker recently revealed. "We don't know if it's an airworthiness issue; we also don't know if it's not an airworthiness issue," he said on 30 November. Airbus has clarified that a recent EASA proposal on corrective steps caused by areas of missing expanded copper foil on the wings of 13 A350's as a result of a production process "is different in nature" to the paint issue. The aircraft impacted will be inspected in line with EASA's instructions.