Boeing’s aircraft orders outnumbered cancellations again in April, marking the third consecutive month of order expansion for the US airframer.

During April, Boeing logged orders for 25 jets and took cancellations for 17, leaving it with eight net new orders for the month, the company reported on 11 May.

The 25 new orders include five 777 Freighters for Azerbaijani cargo carrier Silk Way West Airlines, 14 737 Max jets for lessor Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, three Max jets for lessor Air Lease and three Max jets for an unidentified customer.

The 17 cancellations were all for the Max.

They include eight cancelled by SMBC Aviation Capital, three by Air Lease, three by lessor Timaero Ltd, one by GE Capital Aviation Services and two by South African airline Comair.

The Air Lease activity – three Max orders and three Max cancellations – reflects “re-contracts for earlier delivery positions”, Boeing says.

The 17 cancellations logged in April compare with 16 in March. The number of jets in Boeing’s ASC-606 accounting bucket – which includes orders that Boeing suspects might not actually close – remained unchanged in April. Though the aerospace market recovery remains “uneven”, Boeing is “seeing airlines purchase equipment for replacement and potential growth,” it says. “In some cases, leasing companies are seeing operators reactivating orders.” Boeing delivered 17 aircraft last month. Notably, those included nine 787s, including eight 787-9s – three to Air Lease, two to Japan Airlines, one to United Airlines, one to ANA and one to Atlantis Aviation – and one 787-8 delivered to American Airlines. Boeing had halted 787 deliveries in November 2020, until March, due to a production issue involving what the company calls fuselage “skin flatness”. Boeing aims, by year-end, to deliver the majority of roughly 100 completed but not delivered 787s in its inventory, executives said in late April. Boeing’s April deliveries also included one 767F for FedEx, one 767-based KC-46 military tanker, two 777Fs for DHL, one Max for Air Lease and three Max jets or Southwest Airlines. The number of Max deliveries declined in April due to an electrical-grounding issue that forced the company to pause Max deliveries and led airlines to ground about 100 Max jets. The fix will take several days per aircraft, Boeing says. Boeing says 170 of 195 global aviation regulators have opened their airspace to the Max. April’s changes brought the company’s backlog at the end of the month to 4,045 jets, including 3,239 737's. In the first four months of 2021, Boeing logged cancellations of 230 jets and orders for 307 aircraft, leaving it with 77 net orders.

Qantas Group now expects to restart international flights from late December, versus end-October previously, following a revision to the anticipated timeline for Australia's vaccine rollout. Trans-Tasman flights are unaffected, the airline says in a statement today. "We will keep reviewing these plans as we move towards December and circumstances evolve," it says. The revised schedule is a direct response to the Australian government's revised anticipated timeline for completing its vaccination rollout and a significant reopening of international borders, to end-2021 and mid-2022, respectively. Qantas states: "We remain optimistic that additional bubbles will open once Australia’s vaccine rollout is complete to countries who, by then, are in a similar position, but it’s difficult to predict which ones at this stage." Qantas states that the planning assumption will allow the group and Australia to take advantage of pockets of tourism and trade opportunity as they emerge in a post-Covid-19 world. In the meantime, the group continues to provide critical repatriation and freight flights overseas, it says, and support the recovery of domestic travel. "The resurgence of domestic travel remains the most important element of the group's recovery," says Qantas.

IATA has warned that proposals by airport operator AENA to increase user charges by 5.5% over five years at 46 airports across Spain could damage the country's economic and employment recovery from Covid-19, and labelled the move "irresponsible" The airline association's director general Willie Walsh states: "The whole aviation industry is in crisis. Everybody needs to reduce costs and improve efficiency to repair the financial damage of Covid-19. Having analysed AENA'’s situation, airlines believe that AENA could reduce its charges by 4%. "So proposing to pass the burden of financial recovery on to customers with a 5.5% increase is nothing short of irresponsible. The [civil aviation authority] DGAC should immediately reject the request and instruct AENA to work with the airlines on a mutually agreed recovery plan." IATA estimates that passenger demand in Spain fell 76% in 2020, does not expect a full recovery until 2024. The number of destinations with direct links to Spain also fell from 1,800 in 2019 to 234 in 2020. "An early recovery in travel and tourism is vital for Spain's economic success," argues Walsh. "But higher costs will delay a tourism rebound and keep jobs at risk. "AENA should keep in mind the long-term interests of both its shareholders and the country. And both are better served with cost-efficient airport infrastructure. "The Spanish government is actively looking to open borders and restart air travel. AENA needs to contribute to that effort, not erect a short-sighted and self-interested roadblock."