The Lufthansa Group plans to resume flights to Tel Aviv beginning 8 January 2024 after the service was suspended due to security concerns. The group's airlines will offer a total of 20 weekly connections to and from Tel Aviv, corresponding to around 30% of the regular flight schedule, the German airline group says in a statement. Lufthansa will fly to Tel Aviv four times weekly from Frankfurt as well as thrice weekly from Munich. Austrian will operate eight weekly flights from Vienna and Swiss will serve Tel Aviv five times per week from Zurich. The carrier will deploy aircraft of the Airbus A320 family on the routes.

Qantas has taken delivery of the first of 29 Airbus A220-300s on order from the airframer's Mirabel production facility. Airbus says that the aircraft is ferrying to Sydney via Vancouver, Honolulu and Nadi. Fleets data shows that the aircraft bears MSN 55253 and is owned by the airline. The jets will replace the Boeing 717s that are flown under the QantasLink brand by subsidiary National Jet Systems. Qantas has previously announced that it will debut on the Melbourne-Canberra route in early 2024 and will be focused on connecting smaller cities to the major hubs of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The airline has selected a 137-seat dual-class layout for its A220s, seating 10 in business class and 127 in economy. Qantas adds that six more A220s are due to be delivered by mid-2025.

Airbus has tested a cryogenic, superconducting electric propulsion system to demonstrate that the technology can be built to aerospace specifications. The European airframer notes that superconductive systems could work at lower voltages than conventional electric propulsion systems – which require high voltage to limit power losses – and thereby reduce equipment size and weight. Cryogenic equipment for liquid hydrogen can meanwhile provide cooling. A power-on trial of the demonstrator was completed at Airbus's "E-Aircraft System" testing facility in Munich, Germany, in November, concluding a three-year project named "Advanced Superconducting and Cryogenic Experimental Powertrain Demonstrator" (ASCEND) led by the airframer's future-technology division UpNext, it says. Developed and built at Airbus's Toulouse headquarters in France, the demonstrator comprises a liquid nitrogen-based cooling system, direct-current wiring into a control unit, and alternating-current wiring into a 500kW Airbus-made superconductive motor. The airframer says the system was built using superconductive tape that is 100 times denser than the equivalent copper. Cooled to below -170°C – liquid nitrogen is at -200°C – the electrical components have "practically no resistance", says Airbus. Part of the project's remit is to assess the electrical performance of the equipment amid extreme cooling cycles. "The technology we need already exists," states ASCEND project head Ludovic Ybanez. "Our goal wasn't to reinvent the wheel. It was to identify the best companies and research institutes and adapt their technology for application on board aircraft. We've worked closely with a network of over 20 partners to design a cryogenic powertrain that improves the efficiency of the electrical system by at least 4-5%." Airbus suggests that a combination of hydrogen fuel-cells and cryogenic superconductivity "could be a game changer". The airframer says ASCEND has shown that that superconducting technology could "create a major power shift in electric propulsion, from several hundred kilowatts to multi-megawatts" A electric regional turboprop would require 8MW, the manufacturer notes.