China Aircraft Leasing Group Holdings Limited (CALC) has signed a firm order with Airbus for 30 A320neo Family aircraft to satisfy strong demand for the aircraft from its customer base.
The agreement is the fifth order with Airbus, bringing the total number of Airbus aircraft ordered by CALC to 282, of which 203 are A320neo Family aircraft.
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ย American Airlines is taking its ongoing expansion in Chicago to the next level with 100 new daily departures from OโHare International Airport (ORD) โ bolstering its schedule with additional flights to more than 75 popular destinations just in time for spring break. The airlineโs largest ORD spring schedule on record enhances the strongest network in the U.S. and means more for Americanโs customers: more flights, more choices, more popular destinations and more opportunities to see the world. Additionally, the airline is expanding its summer seasonal service from ORD to two sought-after European destinations: Paris and Dublin. Itโs the latest in Americanโs comprehensive expansion plan that has already enhanced the customer experience, improved operational reliability and deepened its century-long roots in the Chicago community.
Americanโs largest-ever ORD spring operation gives Chicago travelers more options to reach top destinations across its global network while boosting tourism to the city and offering more customers a convenient one-stop connection through ORD.
The airline is adding 100 peak daily departures to its spring schedule with increased service in 75 markets, including Boston (BOS); Cincinnati, Ohio (CVG); Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW); Fort Myers, Florida (RSW); and Orlando, Florida (MCO). The airline is doubling its service from ORD to popular spring break destinations like Las Vegas (LAS); Panama City, Florida (ECP); and Sarasota, Florida (SRQ), as well as well as offering more than twice as much service from ORD to Savannah, Georgia (SAV), and San Francisco (SFO) than what was originally available for spring 2026.
This expansion brings peak ORD operations to more than 500 daily departures this spring, representing 30% more departures than last spring. Reaching 500 peak daily departures solidifies ORDโs spot as the third-largest hub in American’s global network and among the top 10 largest hub operations of all major U.S. carriers. It also extends its spot as the fastest-growing legacy airline hub this year.
These additional flights are now available for purchase through Americanโs mobile app or aa.com.
The airline announced today the extension of summer seasonal service from ORD to Dublin to operate about a month longer and Paris to operate three months longer than previous seasons. The extended seasonal service is part of Americanโs globe-spanning international network connecting customers with the airlineโs best-in-class group of global partners.
American kicked off a major expansion at ORD in summer 2025 with 20% more flights and 22% more seats compared to the 2024 summer schedule. Since then, the airline added nearly 30 new destinations to its ORD network, including Honolulu (HNL), Mexico City (MEX), Madrid (MAD) and Chicagoโs only nonstop service to Naples, Italy (NAP). Additionally, the airline doubled service to warm weather destinations this winter in Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America โ making American the leading carrier from ORD to the region โ and increased frequencies to traditional business markets like Seattle (SEA), Houston (IAH), Fayetteville/Bentonville, Arkansas (XNA), and more to provide customers more flexibility.
Airline hubs act as โconnection factories,โ driving economic growth and business development in their home cities while strengthening regional communities with crucial air service. They multiply travel opportunities for business and leisure by offering convenient one-stop connections, creating a ripple effect that fuels local economies, generates jobs and gives customers more choices.
Americanโs recent expansion at ORD delivers on that promise, bringing more tourism and business opportunities to Chicago while giving travelers in smaller markets access to a vast global network and unmatched flexibility. With added service to destinations like Cedar Rapids, Iowa (CID); Bloomington, Illinois (BMI); Flint, Michigan (FNT); and more, Americanโs ORD hub opens doors for customers, helping them expand business reach and make long-haul travel a reality.
As the nationโs largest dual-hub airport, ORD has long thrived on strong competition among hub carriers, which keeps fares lower and doubles options for travelers. With three new peak daily flights to SFO and Cleveland (CLE) and two to Denver (DEN), customers now have even more ways to travel to, from and through Chicago, and, importantly, they have more choice.
Americanโs expansion goes beyond adding flights through a comprehensive strategy to secure Americanโs position as the airline of choice at ORD. Chicago travelers are responding to Americanโs enhanced focus on customer experience that spans every facet of the travel journey. In the third quarter, enrollments in Americanโs industry-leading AAdvantageยฎ loyalty program grew 7% systemwide year over year, with Chicago leading the way at approximately 20% growth, more than double the system average.
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Ethiopian Airlines, the leading carrier in Africa and one of the fastest-growing airline brands globally, is proud to announce the successful completion of Africaโs first full strip-and-paint program of the Airbus A350-900 aircraft on two of its aircraft, marking a significant advancement in Ethiopian MROโs capacity, technical expertise, and commitment to operational excellence. This achievement marks yet another milestone following the recent development of full strip-and-paint capabilities on the Boeing 787 fleet composite painting capability.ย
As one of the leading aircraft maintenance service providers in the continent and the Middle East, Ethiopian MRO has been offering top-notch aircraft maintenance services, including advanced aircraft and aircraft parts painting and coating solutions through itsย modern paint shop and state-of-the-art dedicated paint hangar for nearly six decades, serving not only Ethiopian Airlinesโ own fleet but also third-party customers.ย
Currently, Ethiopian Airlines possesses comprehensive in-house aircraft painting and specialized multi-layer coating capabilities on both advanced composite and aluminum airframes, across its entire fleet, enabling the airline to efficiently handle painting and coating projects using highly advanced application methods like High-Volume Low-Pressure (HVLP) and electrostatic systems spraying.ย
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American Airlines made this announcement:
American Airlines is fundamentally changing the way it does business at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), the airlineโs largest hub, and the airlineโs customers will soon benefit from those changes in a meaningful way.
DFW has an outsized impact on the rest of the airlineโs operation and on the journeys of the nearly 700,000 customers the airline serves every day across its global network. More customers and more bags travel and connect through DFW every day than any other airport in Americanโs network โ with more than 30% of all daily connecting customers and daily connecting checked bags traveling through the airlineโs hometown airport. When DFW runs well, American runs well. That impact demands continued focus and investment, and both are already well underway. The airline is investing millions of dollars to fortify DFW, delivering:
For more than a decade, Americanโs schedule at DFW has been concentrated across nine banks, or large clusters of flights across the operating day. As all airline bank structures do, this times large groups of flights together, coordinating arrivals and departures, and ultimately, coordinating quick and seamless connections.
Beginning in April โ and visible in the airlineโs schedules starting Dec. 27 โ Americanโs DFW operation is evolving to a 13-bank structure, providing more certainty to the airlineโs average 100,000 peak daily customers traveling on the more than 930 average peak DFW daily departing flights.
With this structural schedule change, customers will also benefit from more improved early-morning departure times compared to 2025. Specifically, they will experience more departure options in highly desired time windows and fewer early morning departures to DFW, which is especially good news for customers making morning connections through DFW.
In addition to the airlineโs DFW schedule, American is making a bold and unprecedented investment in block time for flights to and from DFW and across the airlineโs network. Block time โ the total scheduled time between pushback from the departure gate to arrival at the destination gate โ determines how long a customerโs trip feels.
With this investment in Americanโs customers, the airline is ensuring more on-time departures that lead to more on-time arrivals and fewer delays, all creating an overall smoother and improved travel experience. In short, American is bolstering its ability to get its customers and their bags where theyโre going and on time.
As American spreads out its DFW flight schedule across the day, the airline is also spreading out customer volume, including everything from local customers arriving in parking garages, checking in at lobbies and clearing security to connecting customers making their way through Americanโs terminals to their next flights.
These changes are on top of a number of other critical investments to further enhance the customer experience when traveling through Americanโs Flagship hub, and importantly, enabling future growth, which means more flight and destination options for our customers. That includes:
No other airline recovers from bad weather and irregular operations better than American, and the airline has demonstrated that time and time again. Having the airlineโs largest hub at DFW provides immeasurable benefits to Americanโs customers and the broader airline, including the ability to easily connect through an airport centrally located in the U.S.
With all the benefits DFW brings, it has also recently experienced a disproportionate amount of bad weather, particularly thunderstorms that can require the entire airport to be paused until the conditions clear. When that happens in the future, this new schedule structure will provide far greater resilience and less adverse impact, allowing American to recover even quicker and get customers on their way as soon as the weather clears.
โOur investment in operational resilience extends beyond our DFW schedule,โ said Moses. โWe know the negative impact flight diversions have on our customers. Theyโre also incredibly disruptive to the broader airline, especially as they create congestion at airports which often limits our ability to get aircraft to a gate and importantly, deplane customers.โ
At DFW, American is investing millions of dollars in additional remote deplaning capability (everything from equipment and bussing to staffing) that allows the airline to most importantly, divert fewer flights away from DFW.
Thai Airways International Public Company Limited (THAI) has officially welcomed its first Airbus A321neo, registration HS-TOA, bestowed with the royal name โBoworrangsee,โ strengthening fleet capabilities to support growth across the Asia-Pacific region.
The ceremony was attended by Mr. Lavaron Saengsnit, Chairman of the Board, together with Mr. Charnsilp Trinuchagorn, Board Member, and the executive management team led by Mr. Chai Eamsiri, Chief Executive Officer.
The A321neo features advanced, fuel-efficient technology, reducing COโ emissions per seat by up to 20%, while enhancing passenger comfort on regional routes.
The first commercial flight is scheduled for January 22, 2026 between Bangkok and Singapore.
Embraer has delivered the 50th E195-E2 aircraft to Porter Airlines, marking a major milestone in one of North Americaโs most dynamic fleet expansions. Since receiving its first E2 jet in December 2022, Porter set out to reshape travel across North America and set a new standard for passenger experience.
Porter has firm orders for 75 aircraft, with purchase rights for an additional 25, potentially bringing its fleet up to 100 E2s. The E195-E2 has enabled Porterโs impressive network expansion across Canada, the U.S., and now the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America.
The airlineโs bold strategy includes extending its elevated economy experience into southern vacation sunshine markets; launching 13 new routes to five popular destinations this season โ Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Nassau, Grand Cayman, and Liberia (Costa Rica) โ from Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Hamilton airports. With the addition of the 50th E2, Porter will continue exploring opportunities to increase capacity across its growing network.
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OAG, the leading data platform for the global travel industry, today released analysis of the Busiest Airline Routes in the USA in 2025, highlighting continued strength across major domestic corridors. The rankings are based on OAGโs Global Airline Schedules Data.
Domestic services continue to account for most of the busiest airline routes in the USA. New York JFK โ Los Angeles (JFKโLAX) ranks as the busiest domestic route in 2025, with 3.43 million seats, up 9% year-over-year, reinforcing its status as the leading U.S. transcontinental market.
New York LaGuardia โ Chicago OโHare (LGAโORD) follows in second place, growing 7% to 3.33 million seats, while Los Angeles โ San Francisco (LAXโSFO) ranks third, increasing 5% to 3.31 million seats.
Several leisure-focused routes saw capacity declines compared with 2024, including Atlanta โ Orlando (ATLโMCO) (-7%) and Honolulu โ Kahului (HNLโOGG) (-10%). Meanwhile, Los Angeles โ Chicago OโHare (LAXโORD) posted moderate growth of 4%, underscoring the resilience of large hub-to-hub markets.
New York JFK โ London Heathrow (JFKโLHR) remains the USAโs busiest international route with 3.97 million seats in 2025, down slightly (-1%) from 2024. It would top the list in a combined ranking of international and domestic routes, however the second busiest international route, Orlando (MCO) โ San Juan (SJU) would not figure in a combined top ten with its 2.23M seats placing it behind many more domestic routes.
Also from OAG:
Nine of the Top Ten Busiest Routes operate in the Asia Pacific region.
The busiest airline route of 2025 is Jeju (CJU) to Seoul Gimpo (GMP):
The second and third placed busiest routes are both in Japan – which continues to maintain a strong position despite an extensive high speed rail network covering the country:
Vietnamโs largest domestic route between Hanoi (HAN) and Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) is the fourth busiest route:
The fastest growing route in the top ten is fifth placed Jeddah (JED) to Riyadh (RUH):
The busiest domestic route in the USA in 2025 is New York JFK (JFK) to Los Angeles (LAX), with 3.4 million seats. Capacity has grown by 9% compared with 2024, although it remains 20% lower than 2019 levels.
New York La Guardia (LGA) to Chicago OโHare (ORD) is in second place, with 3.3 million seats, 7% increase YoY. Despite this annual growth, the route is still 13% below 2019 levels.
Los Angeles (LAX) to San Francisco (SFO)ย ranks third with 3.3 million seats, up 5% YoY;ย however, the route remains 29% lower than 2019.ย
Further down the rankings, the Denver (DEN) to Phoenix (PHX) corridor stands out with 3.1 million seats, only 3% lower than last year but a substantial 23% above 2019. By contrast, Honolulu (HNL) to Kahului (OGG) – the busiest US domestic route in 2023 -has fallen to seventh place, operating 3.0 million seats in 2025, a 10% reduction YoY; however, it is still 6% above 2019.
Coulson Aviation USA has announced the launch of its Boeing 767 Very Large Airtanker (VLAT) program, marking a significant advancement in the evolution of aerial firefighting capability. The program is intended to provide a sustainable replacement for legacy VLAT platforms nearing the end of their operational service life.
The recent grounding of the MD11 and DC10 fleets has highlighted a structural challenge for firefighting agencies worldwide. As older widebody aircraft are retired, the industry faces a significant reduction in high-capacity, large-scale retardant delivery capability. Coulsonโs 767 VLAT is being developed to address this gap with an aircraft that offers greater payload, lower fuel burn, and long-term sustainability compared to existing platforms.
Coulsonโs 767 VLAT will incorporate the largest iteration of their patented RADS retardant delivery system, while retaining the ability to carry over 160 passengers, and delivering a tank capacity that exceeds any VLAT currently in operation. The aircraft will be designed with the same multi-mission, all-risk versatility that defines Coulsonโs airtanker fleet, while offering substantial gains in payload capability, fuel efficiency, and long-term maintainability compared to legacy VLAT platforms. Engineering, structural analysis, and systems integration planning are already underway.
The 767 VLAT will complement and augment Coulsonโs fleet of Large Airtankers, including the C-130H Hercules and the 737 Fireliner, which together represent the highest-capacity 4,000 gallon LAT solutions operating today. By adding a next-generation very large airtanker to its portfolio, Coulson will provide firefighting agencies with an additional strategic tool when incidents demand sustained, high-volume aerial suppression over extended operational periods.
Coulson Aviation continues to invest ahead of demand, ensuring its partners have access to reliable, effective, and globally supportable aircraft. The Boeing 767 VLAT program represents the next evolution of heavy aerial firefighting capability and reinforces Coulsonโs leadership in delivering safe, innovative, and mission-ready solutions to the global firefighting community.
Lufthansa announced:
It has landed! The Boeing 787-9 with its impressive special livery marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first Lufthansa arrived in Frankfurt today, Tuesday. Numerous plane spotters, travelers, and spectators welcomed the special aircraft at Germany’s largest airport, which was transferred from the Boeing plant in Everett, Washington. The divisional board of Lufthansa Airlines also personally welcomed the Dreamliner with the registration D-ABPU and the name โBerlinโ.
Jens Ritter, Chief Executive Officer of Lufthansa Airlines: โThese are the particularly beautiful and unforgettable moments in our job. It’s always a special moment to take delivery of a brand-new aircraft โ but today’s landing of this anniversary Boeing 787-9, with its extraordinary special livery marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first โLuft Hansaโ, was even more exciting and fascinating.”
The Dreamliner โPapa Uniformโ combines tradition and the future in an iconic design: the blue fuselage is adorned with a white XXL crane, whose wings merge into the wings, turning the aircraft into a flying anniversary ambassador for Lufthansa. In addition to the crane, a โ100โ is integrated on the left side of the fuselage and the lettering โ1926 | 2026โ on the right side. A โ100โ can also be seen on the underside of the aircraft.
In 2026, Lufthansa will celebrate a special anniversary: On January 6, 1926, almost exactly 100 years ago, the first Lufthansa was founded. The official maiden flight then took off on April 6, 1926. To mark this special occasion, a special anniversary fleet comprising a total of six aircraft will take off in 2026: The Boeing 787-9 will lead this XXL crane fleet. An Airbus A380, an Airbus A350-1000, an Airbus A350-900, an Airbus A320, and a Boeing 747-8 will also be receiving the new livery. The aircraft will gradually be given the new design, with the anniversary fleet expected to be complete in fall 2026.
KlasJet has signed an agreement with Air Peace, the largest airline in Nigeria. Under the new contract, KlasJet will provide Air Peace with a Boeing 737-800 aircraft. This dual-configured aircraft will help the airline provide scheduled passenger and charter services more efficiently.
Air Peace currently operates one of the largest and most diverse fleets in the region, including Boeing 737s, Embraer E195-E2s, and wide-body Boeing 777s for long-haul routes. The airline currently operates 29 aircraft that regularly serve 20 destinations.
The need for additional aircraft perfectly illustrates the rapid growth of both the Nigerian and West African aviation markets. According to IATA, air traffic in Africa is estimated to grow 7% in 2025 and forecast to increase 6% in 2026, with Central and West Africa among the fastest-growing subregions.
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