The president of Venezuela's state-owned carrier Conviasa, Ramon Velasquez Araguayan, is among eight officials added to the US Treasury Department's sanctions list for their role in supporting the regime of the country's president Nicolas Maduro. The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) says Velasquez has served as Maduro's transportation minister since May 2023 while also helming the carrier, which is also under US sanctions. Others affected by the 10 January sanctions included officials from other state-owned oil companies plus police and military officials "who lead key economic and security agencies enabling Nicolas Maduro’s repression and subversion of democracy in Venezuela," OFAC states. The announcement coincided with Maduro being sworn in for a third term as president on 10 January and are part of a coordinated action with the European Union, Canada and the UK. However, the US is the only one of those jurisdictions that has individually sanctioned Velasquez. According to a 2 January article in The Economist, Maduro's inauguration will "defy the popular will" as in July "a clear majority of Venezuelans voted against him, only for the electoral authority, which the regime controls, to declare that Mr Maduro had won the election with 52% of the vote". Conviasa has 21 aircraft in service, comprised of nine Embraer 190-E1s, seven Cessna 208B Grand Caravans, four Airbus A340s and one A319 corporate jet, fleet data shows. A further nine aircraft, including six E190s and two A340s, are listed as stored. The airline manages all of its aircraft itself, although four A340s are owned by Iran's Mahan Air. Data shows that the carrier has a limited international network from Caracas to Bridgetown, Santa Cruz, Havana, Managua, Cancun and Mexico City, and operates on several domestic routes.

Investigators probing the fatal crash of a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 will look to other evidence to uncover the cause of the accident after confirming that the two key data recorders were found missing vital data from minutes before it crashed. “The analysis results showed that all data from the CVR [cockpit voice recorder] and FDR [flight data recorder] were lost in the four minutes before the aircraft hit the localiser,” states the country’s ministry of land, infrastructure and transportation in an 11 January update. The localiser refers to the concrete structure at the end of Muan International airport that the aircraft crashed. The accident resulted in 179 deaths with all but two surviving crew members. While the ministry concedes that data from the recorders are “important”, investigation and analysis of other data are also conducted during an accident investigation, adding that “we plan to do our best to accurately determine the cause of the accident”. Investigators will likewise investigate why the recorders did not record the final minutes before the fatal crash, it says. The CVR will be transported to the US for “cross-validation” with the FDR, says the ministry. The FDR – which was found with a damaged power connector – was sent to the US on 6 January after local authorities deemed they were unable to extract data from it. At the same time, South Korean authorities have completed safety inspections on Boeing 737-800s across six airlines and plans to expand the investigation to other aircraft types operated by 11 airlines from 13-31 January. The investigation into 737-800s, meanwhile, found that airlines were “generally complying with the operation and maintenance regulations,” according to a 13 January statement from the ministry. However, it found that “some airlines” exceeded “pre- and post- flight inspection cycles” and did not comply with “defect resolution procedure” and “passenger boarding procedure”. Examples include airlines exceeding the 48-hour timeframe for pre- and post- flight inspection for international flights, replacing one instead of all four filters when an aircraft’s hydraulic system's electric motor pump overheat indicator was lit, and boarding passengers before maintenance checks were completed. “Major improvement measures include incorporating and regularising training for multiple engine failures in training manuals, including bird strike response procedures in pre-flight briefings, and reviewing methods to standardize and periodically manage aircraft availability rate calculations,” adds the ministry. The ministry has also concluded its inspection of "the location and materials of navigation safety facilities around runways" at airports across the country, and found facilities “well maintained”, with most using “breakable” materials to ensure safety. However, “improvements were found to be necessary” for localiser facilities and their foundations at seven airports with concrete and steel structure, including Muan airport. The ministry is also launching a safety inspection of the country's major airports between 13-21 January.

Airbus commercial chief Christian Scherer has expressed confidence in the company's plan to increase production to 75 A320neo-family jets a month in 2027 and 12 A350s in 2028 despite continued supply chain shortages. Speaking during a briefing about Airbus's 2024 order and delivery results on 9 January, Scherer said that the European airframer had been able to significantly increase its industrial output last year due to investments in production facilities, training, internal organisational changes and collaboration with suppliers. Airbus increased its delivery volume to 766 commercial jets in 2024, from 735 in 2023. However, Scherer says "the delivery numbers themselves actually hide an even better performance on the industrial side". "There was a significantly higher production increase, which doesn't meet the eye. [Because] in 2023, we did deliver, as part of the 735, quite a bit of existing inventory," he says, adding that last year's output "gives me reason for optimism". A320neo-family production reached 602 jets (including 361 A321neos), up from 571 in 2023. A350 deliveries declined to 57, from 64. The manufacturer additionally delivered 75 A220s, up from 68 in 2023, while A330 output was flat at 32 units. Airbus previously disclosed its intention to increase monthly A330 production to four aircraft in 2024 and reach Rate 14 on the A220 programme in 2026. The operating environment remains "very difficult", Scherer acknowledges. "The external environment, the geopolitics, the local politics in places we operate in or deliver to, and the supply chain continues to have weak links that we have to address. But I am confident that we are on a ramp, that we are on the ramp that we're planning, and that we will see continuous improvement and a climb rate in 2025." He did not specify production targets for 2025. Airbus also made "really meaningful progress" in improving its supply chain, Scherer says. "We have stepped up our involvement in the supply chain and become much more operational and less transactional in the way we deal with our partners. We've addressed different supply chain issues, one after another, as they developed and we faced them, and that's now paying off. "The vast majority of our suppliers have also made what is needed [on] their side to deliver the ramp up with us." Scherer cites engines, cabin monuments, galleys, seats, and supplier Spirit AeroSystems as areas of concern. The US aerostructures manufacturer has reached deals with Airbus and Boeing to integrate much of its operation into the those of the two airframers. But for some Spirit AeroSystems activities, including an Airbus-supplying UK facility in Prestwick, solutions have yet to be found. Scherer observes bottlenecks in the supply of detailed aerostructures. "We have a dedicated task force on aerostructures and detailed parts in particular, which is still a very fragmented ecosystem." On cabin interiors, Airbus has allocated staff to support airline customers to source and certificate equipment for their aircraft. More broadly, the airframer has seconded staff to suppliers and, occasionally, provided financial support to improve production lines, Scherer reports. "We've worked hand-in hand with some of our large Tier 1 suppliers," he says. "All of this has brought visible results but, frankly, wasn't enough." In addition to better supplier collaboration, the airframer made internal organisational changes to increase efficiency and, as Scherer puts it, "make us fitter for the times ahead". At the heart of the supply-chain issues is the loss of aerospace know-how as staff exited the sector amid the pandemic, Scherer notes. "That's why, in our company at Airbus, we're devoting a lot of effort in recruitment [and] constant training of our production forces."