TAAG Angola Airlines has taken delivery of its first Boeing 787-9 on lease from AerCap. The African carrier has another three 787s (one -9 and two -10s) on order and opted for GE Aerospace GEnx engines on the fleet. TAAG notes that the first Dreamliner arrived nearly 50 years after it received its first aircraft, a 737-200. "The delivery of the 787-9 is a pivotal step in our strategy to modernise TAAG Angola Airlines' fleet," states chief executive Nelson Rodrigues de Oliveira. "This airplane brings the efficiency and versatility we need to meet growing market demands, replace our aging widebody fleet, and deliver a world-class experience to our passengers." Fleets data shows that the carrier has nine 737NGs (including one freighter), eight 777s, one Airbus A220-300 and six De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400 turboprops. The A220 is on lease from Air Lease Corporation. TAAG has another 10 A220-300s on order, to be variously leased from ALC (three), Aviation Capital Group (four) and Azorra (three).

IATA has reported record-breaking passenger demand in 2024. Full-year traffic, as measured by revenue passenger kilometres, increased 10.4% year on year, exceeding 2019 levels by 3.8%. RPK growth was highest in Asia-Pacific, at 16.9%, followed by Africa on 13.2% and the Middle East on 9.5%. Europe's RPKs grew 8.7%, Latin America's 7.8% and North America's 4.6%. Capacity as measured in available seat-kilometres was lifted 8.7%. Faster growth in demand than in capacity led to a record-high load factor of 83.5%. International traffic showed a particularly strong resurgence, rising 13.6% compared with 2023, against 5.7% for domestic. In December 2024, there was an 8.6% increase in demand. Last year "made it absolutely clear that people want to travel", states Willie Walsh, IATA’s director general. "With 10.4% demand growth, travel reached record numbers domestically and internationally. Airlines met that strong demand with record efficiency." IATA expects growth in travel demand to continue this year, albeit at a more moderate pace of 8%.

KLM is planning to cut 250 jobs in non-operational roles as part of its efforts to structurally improve its financial and operational performance by €450 million ($469 million). The Works Council and the trade unions have been informed in advance, the airline says. "It is crucial for our future to structurally lower costs, which involves making painful choices. One of these measures is reducing the number of non-operational jobs, where we will try to avoid forced layoffs, although we cannot rule this out in advance," says KLM president and chief executive Marjan Rintel. He adds that the airline will continue to recruit operational positions to "maintain our operational capacity as much as possible". KLM says that it has also reached an agreement with its pilots’ union on temporary measures to increase pilot availability over the upcoming northern summer and winter scheduling seasons.