Qantas has brought forward the restart of international flights from Sydney and Melbourne, and will launch service between Sydney and Delhi on 6 December. The carrier will operate three return flights per week on the Sydney-Delhi sector with Airbus A330 aircraft, and increase frequency to a daily service by the end of the year, it says in a statement today. This is Qantas's first commercial flight between these two nations in almost a decade, it says. The group states: “This is subject to discussions with Indian authorities to finalise necessary approvals. The flights would initially operate until at least late March 2022, with a view to continuing if there is sufficient demand." Flights from Sydney to Delhi would operate via Darwin, while flights from Delhi to Sydney would operate nonstop, according to Qantas. From Sydney, the mainline carrier will resume flights to Singapore on 23 November, four weeks earlier than scheduled, thrice weekly with A330 jets and eventually, daily from 18 December. The same aircraft type will be deployed on Sydney-Bangkok, resuming 14 January with five return flights a week. Sydney-Nadi flights will resume from 7 December, using 737 aircraft; Sydney to Johannesburg from 5 January 2022, with 787's. Jetstar will resume flying from Sydney to Phuket from 12 January; Singapore services from Melbourne and Darwin will resume from 16 December. Qantas states: “The faster ramp-up follows the federal and New South Wales governments confirming that international borders would reopen from 1 November and the decision by the NSW government to remove quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated arrivals, which significantly increases travel demand.” The carrier says these decisions support all Qantas and Jetstar workers based in Australia and New Zealand, who are currently stood down, to return to work by early December. This includes around 5,000 employees linked to domestic flying and around 6,000 linked to international flying. International services from Melbourne have also been brought forward, in line with Victoria's state government's decision to remove quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated travellers, starting November. Melbourne-London will relaunch on 6 November, six weeks earlier than scheduled. The service will be operated twice weekly with 787 jets and ramped up to a daily service from 18 December. Qantas's Melbourne-Singapore service restart will be brought forward by three weeks to 22 November, operated thrice weekly with A330 jets and from 18 December, daily. Jetstar will also service the route four times a week using 787 jets.

Southwest Airlines' staffing and operational challenges, along with the delta variant's demand-throttling effects plaguing all US carriers in August and September, cost it $300 million in revenue during the third quarter, the carrier estimates. Its operational difficulties have continued in the fourth quarter, prompting it to reduce its schedule through the first quarter of 2021. Southwest now expects its capacity in the fourth quarter will be down 8% versus 2019, a widening of 3 percentage points compared with its previous estimate. The Dallas-based carrier's operating revenue in the third quarter slid 17% versus the pre-pandemic third quarter of 2019, to $4.7 billion. Southwest made an operating profit of $733 million in the third quarter, compared with a profit of $819 million in the third quarter of 2019. "The bounce in revenues at the beginning of the third quarter came with a lot of bumps in the operation, as our historic staffing models left us short and caused us to miss our reliability plan for the quarter," said Southwest's chief executive Gary Kelly during a 21 October earnings call. "I would be the first to admit that things are messy. It is also very encouraging to see the earnings potential that we had in July, especially considering that business travel is far from recovered to 2019 levels, and our capacity is not fully restored with 24 airplanes still sitting on the ground. But it also illustrates that this virus and its effect on our business can be unpredictable and volatile." Incoming chief executive Bob Jordan, who will take the reins from Kelly on 1 February, notes that leisure and business booking trends have been recovering "nicely" since the US's rate of daily new cases of Covid-19 began falling in September. Nevertheless, Southwest foresees that continuing operational "inefficiencies", staffing shortages and increasing jet-fuel prices will lead to a 15-25% decline in revenue during the fourth quarter, versus the fourth quarter of 2019. The carrier has been "trimming" its schedule in the current quarter and the first quarter of 2022 to help it avoid the rolling flight cancellations its customers suffered through earlier in October. Southwest had cancelled more than 2,700 flights between 8 and 12 October, in an echo of its raft of flight cancellations in mid-June. The carrier blames the October cancellations primarily on "weather and other external constraints", which left aircraft and crews out of pre-planned positions. The carrier's most pressing immediate goal is to "bulk up" its staffing, Jordan says. "We've made tremendous progress, but it remains short of what is needed, especially when we dip into staffing reserves." Southwest ended the third quarter with $17 billion in liquidity.

AirAsia Thailand, also known as Thai AirAsia, is resuming flights in November from its operational base at Suvarnabhumi airport, commencing with six routes. The airline will commence flights to Chiang Mai, Nan, Phuket and Nakhon Si Thammarat starting 1 November, and to Chiang Rai and Krabi starting 19 November, it says in a 21 October release. In the coming weeks, AirAsia Thailand will offer 36 routes to 23 destinations, operating 60 flights a day. AirAsia Thailand chief executive officer Santisuk Klongchaiya stated that state domestic tourism campaigns and a policy to reopen Thailand from 1 November is "a positive signal" for the tourism industry. He noted that over the past two months, AirAsia has "witnessed continual growth in travel demand and the number of passengers booking each flight". “These developments have prompted the airline to resume more routes and further increase flight frequencies in time for the peak travel season during the final quarter of the year," he says. AirAsia says flight capacity will rise to a maximum 85% by December before rising to 100% in January 2022.