The pace of bookings for Southwest Airlines flights has "recently" begun decelerating while the pace of trip cancellations accelerates as rising Covid-19 case counts appear to be taking their toll on travel demand in the USA. The Dallas-based airline states in updated financial guidance disclosed on 11 August that it believes the recent rise in Covid-19 cases associated with the delta variant is driving the decelerating close-in bookings and accelerating close-in trip cancellations it is seeing in August. Southwest expects the infection rate will continue to "remain elevated" in the near term and has consequently dimmed the outlook for the third quarter that it had disclosed in its second-quarter earnings statement and investor call on 22 July. "[Our] current outlook for third quarter 2021 operating revenues has worsened by an estimated three to four points from its previous outlook three weeks ago, compared with third quarter 2019," Southwest says. The carrier had previously estimated that its operating revenue in August would be down 12-17%, compared with the same month in 2019. Southwest now expects revenue in August will be down 15-20%. "We believe there will be a bulk of airline guidance updates in September, given the airlines will have had enough time to measure the impact of rising Covid-19 infections and reassess demand across all segments," Cowen analyst Helane Becker writes in an 11 August research note. US Centers for Disease Prevention and Control data shows that the rate of new cases of Covid-19 in the USA had fallen to a post-March 2020 low of 32 per million population (seven-day average) on 21 June, from a high of 754 on 13 January, but has been on the rise, driven largely by the delta variant. For the two weeks ended 31 July, 83% of Americans with new cases of Covid-19 had been infected by the delta variant, up from 27% for the two weeks ended 19 June. The daily number of new Covid-19 infections per million population in the USA rose from 36 on 19 June to 281 on 8 August. The rate of new deaths from Covid-19 in the USA began inching up during the second week in July after having declined consistently since mid-January 2021.

Malaysia has begun to ease restrictions on domestic and international travel for fully vaccinated travellers, which could allow some air travel to return. Prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced the new measures, which are to take effect from 10 August, in a televised address on 8 August. Vaccinated citizens and permanent residents entering Malaysia will be allowed to complete their 14-day quarantine at home, regardless of their state of residence, according to a 10 August update by the Malaysia's National Security Council. Cross-district travel within states has also been allowed in nine states and territories, as part of Malaysia's four-phase plan to reopen the country. Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Perak, Penang and Sabah have been classified under "phase two" while Perlis, Sarawak and the federal territory of Labuan have moved on to "phase three". Data shows that Malaysian carriers flew over 80,000 domestic flights to these nine states and territories in 2019, representing about 40% of the country's total domestic flights. Malaysia has also granted permission for inter-district and interstate travel to enable spouses as well as parents and children under the age of 18 who are living apart to meet. In line with this, flag carrier Malaysia Airlines has offered flight bookings from 10 August to 30 September, for travel until 30 October. The move comes days after Malaysia's daily Covid-19 case count surged to new highs, exceeding 20,000 cases for the first time on 5 August and nearly 20,900 cases on 6 August, according to data from the health ministry. As of 9 August, Malaysia has vaccinated nine million people, about 39% of its total population.

Aer Lingus's UK subsidiary has been granted an air operator's certificate by the country's civil aviation authority, allowing it to begin scheduled passenger services from Manchester to the USA. "The UK Civil Aviation Authority is pleased to confirm that it has granted an airline operating licence to Aer Lingus (UK) Limited, part of the Aer Lingus Group", comments the CAA. In an updated provided in June, Dublin-based Aer Lingus said it was delaying plans to launch direct flights from Manchester to New York and Orlando to end-September. It had previously planned to launch the two routes on 29 July, but decided to postpone because of "international borders opening later than expected". The IAG-owned carrier will begin its Manchester-Barbados service on 20 October, as originally planned, adding services from the northern UK city to Boston in summer 2022. It will deploy its Airbus A321LRs for the services to New York and Boston, with A330-300s being used on the Orlando and Barbados routes. At a results call last month, chief executive Lynne Embleton commented that Aer Lingus has a "good opportunity" to combine its A330s and A321s to "test out some new markets" once it had secured a UK air operator’s certificate for its Manchester services. "If Manchester is successful there’s no reason why we couldn’t consider expanding into other markets – but it’s one step at a time," she added.