American Airlines subsidiary Envoy Air will take delivery of three new Embraer 175 aircraft later this year. Deliveries will begin during the fourth quarter and will bring its E175 fleet to 101 aircraft by end of the year, the airline says. Envoy’s senior vice-president, air operations, Dee Temples states: “Last year we celebrated the introduction of the E175 to Miami, expanding our service to international markets and solidifying the service we provide to American’s network.”

Air France-KLM is from this week using sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) on all flights from France and the Netherlands, funded by a slight increase in ticket prices. The group intends to add €1 ($1.13) to economy fares for intra-European services departing its two home countries, up to €4 to intercontinental fares, and larger increases to first- and business-class fares. "This means that all passengers will have a more sustainable journey and the demand for SAF will increase drastically with the end goal to reduce CO2 emissions," states Air France-KLM. It sees SAF as a key tool in enabling the aviation industry to reach net zero by 2050, reducing the carbon footprint of flights by an average of 80% over the entire life cycle. Air France-KLM is targeting a 5% share for SAF by 2030 and 63% in 2050. "Today, SAF production worldwide covers only around 0.1% of the total fuel usage of the aviation industry. We need to speed up the production," states Fahmi Mahjoub, the group's general manager for the UK and Ireland. "And that's why we are now gradually incorporating SAF in our flights departing from France and the Netherlands as of January 2022. Since the majority of Air France and KLM passengers have a stopover or a transfer in France or the Netherlands, we are happy to offer most of our customers a more sustainable product." In addition to factoring the extra expense of SAF into ticket prices, Air France-KLM will give customers the option of purchasing SAF for their journey. SAF's is typically six times that of conventional jet fuel. The industry hopes that the gap will narrow as production increases and new technologies come online.

United Airlines has disclosed that approximately 3,000 of its US employees presently have Covid-19, adding that none of its vaccinated employees who have recently tested positive have been hospitalised. Nearly one-third of United's workforce at Newark Liberty called in sick in a single day recently, chief executive Scott Kirby told employees in an 11 January memo detailing the effects of the Omicron variant on the Chicago-based carrier's operations. Kirby and United president Brett Hart told the airline's US employees on 6 August that they would be required to receive a Covid-19 vaccine and upload their vaccination records to a company site or face possible termination. By 22 September, more than 97% of United's US-based workforce had received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine. "In dealing with Covid, zero is the word that matters – zero deaths and zero hospitalizations for vaccinated employees," Kirby writes in the 11 January memo to employees. "And while I know that some people still disagree with our policy, United is proving that requiring the vaccine is the right thing to do because it saves lives." Kirby notes that the hospitalisation rate among United employees has been 100 times lower than the general population in the USA during the period following the commencement of United's vaccination policy. "Prior to our vaccine requirement, tragically, more than one United employee on average per week was dying from Covid. But we’ve now gone eight straight weeks with zero Covid-related deaths among our vaccinated employees." Omicron-driven staff shortages coupled with severe winter weather have led US carriers to cancel thousands of flights in December and early January, and United has been no exception. The carrier's daily flight cancellations since 22 December peaked at 862 on 1 January, Cirium data shows. United has cancelled an average of 418 flights per day from 7 to 11 January. Kirby addresses the operational disruptions in his memo to employees: "While we go to great lengths to avoid cancelling flights, we worked to get ahead of the impact by acting early to cancel flights when necessary and notifying impacted customers in advance of them coming to the airport – we're also reducing our near-term schedules to make sure we have the staffing and resources to take care of customers. As a result, we’ve been able to get a high percentage of our customers on other flights and close to their original arrival time."