Air France launched free, ultra-high-speed Wi-Fi on board its aircraft in September 2025, becoming one of the first major European airlines to offer complimentary in-flight internet to all passengers. The service is powered by SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network and is available to anyone with a free Flying Blue loyalty account. Air France plans to install the system across its entire fleet by the end of 2026.
Continue reading Air France Launches Free Starlink Wi-Fi on Flights
Throughout the summer of 2025, a succession of European carriers began withdrawing capacity from transatlantic routes to the United States, citing a sustained collapse in bookings that went well beyond the seasonal fluctuations airlines typically manage. The retreat — led by Lufthansa, British Airways, KLM, Iberia, and Norse Atlantic, among others — reflected a confluence of economic anxiety, geopolitical discomfort, and declining consumer confidence in travelling to the US, and prompted one of the sharpest reappraisals of North Atlantic route networks in years.
Continue reading European Airlines Slash US Routes Amid Travel Slump
American Airlines took delivery of its first Airbus A321XLR in late July 2025, becoming the first US carrier to receive the newest and longest-range member of the A320 family. The aircraft, collected from Airbus’s delivery centre in Hamburg, Germany, features a brand-new premium economy cabin and is capable of flying routes that were previously too long for a single-aisle narrowbody jet. American plans to use the aircraft on transcontinental domestic routes before launching its first transatlantic services in 2026.
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The crash of Air India Flight 171 on 12 June 2025, 32 seconds after departing Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport bound for London Gatwick, claimed 241 of the 242 people on board and killed a further 19 on the ground, making it the deadliest aviation accident of the 2020s and the first fatal hull loss suffered by a Boeing 787 Dreamliner since the aircraft entered commercial service in 2011. The single survivor, a passenger seated near the rear of the aircraft, was pulled from the wreckage of a doctors’ hostel belonging to B. J. Medical College, into which the aircraft plunged after losing thrust from both engines within seconds of becoming airborne.
Continue reading Air India 787 Crashes on Takeoff, Killing 260
Travellers flying through Newark Liberty International Airport in May 2025 faced hundreds of flight cancellations and long delays after a radar failure and a serious shortage of air traffic controllers brought the airport close to gridlock. Newark handles around 400 flights a day and is the main hub of United Airlines, and the disruptions caused chaos for tens of thousands of passengers during one of the busiest travel periods of the year.
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In the space of a few days in April 2025, one of the most visible consequences of the escalating trade war between the United States and China manifested itself at an aircraft completion centre in Zhoushan, Shanghai: Boeing 737 MAX jets finished and prepared for Chinese airline customers were ferried back across the Pacific, unwanted by the carriers for which they had been built. The Chinese government had directed its airlines not to accept further Boeing deliveries following the imposition of 125-percent retaliatory tariffs on American goods, making the economics of taking new aircraft wholly indefensible. For Boeing, already navigating a precarious financial recovery from years of programme setbacks and regulatory scrutiny, the sudden loss of one of its most strategically important customer bases represented a significant blow with consequences that extended well beyond the immediate delivery cycle.
Continue reading Boeing Repatriates 737 MAX Jets from China Over Tariffs