Ural Airlines made a net profit of RB2.1 billion ($28.5 million) in the first half of 2021, rebounding from a loss of RB1.4 billion during the same period in 2019. Revenue reached RB40.2 billion, representing an increase of 9% compared with the first six months of 2019. The Russian carrier says the positive results “became possible thanks to a comprehensive cost-cutting programme and continuous optimisation of all processes”. Ural carried nearly 3.8 million passengers during the first half of the year, 11% fewer than in 2019's first six months. The number of flights operated, 27,814, was down 5%. “Despite the fact that the first half of the year is traditionally a low season for the passenger air transportation industry, in this period the company managed to smooth out the negative effect of 2020, to significantly restore the level of equity capital,” the airline says.

Virgin Atlantic will launch flights to Barbados and Orlando from Edinburgh as part of wider capacity growth to the region.
The UK carrier says it will operate twice-weekly flights from Edinburgh to Barbados from 5 December. Virgin Atlantic says the route represents its first international flights from the Scottish capital in the carrier's 37-year history and will be Scotland’s only direct service to the Caribbean. Twice-weekly flights from Edinburgh to Orlando are scheduled to begin in April 2022. The two routes will be operated with Airbus A330's. A new thrice-weekly seasonal service from Manchester to Montego Bay in Jamaica will commence on 6 November, using A330's too. From London Heathrow, Virgin Atlantic will start twice-weekly flights to the Bahamas on 20 November, and thrice-weekly services to St Lucia on 18 December. The two routes will be operated with Boeing 787-9's and A330's, respectively. Frequencies will be increased on existing routes to Barbados and Jamaica from Heathrow, and to Barbados from Manchester. In addition to its Caribbean expansion, Virgin Atlantic says it will increase capacity on routes to Mumbai and Hong Kong in August and September, respectively.

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.