Google UK and the British government have launched a state-backed trial using artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce the climate impact of aircraft contrails across an entire transatlantic flight corridor, described as the world’s first airspace-scale attempt at the problem, according to the search engine giant.

“Operation Blue Skies” will run within Shanwick Oceanic airspace, covering the eastern half of the North Atlantic corridor, which accounts for around 5% of global contrail warming.

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The Air China-operated C919 departed Beijing Capital International Airport at 3 pm on Wednesday (August 12) and landed in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, at 4.58 pm local time. The Beijing-Ulaanbaatar service, operating as CA723/CA724, will run daily.

The flight marks the first time the C919 has operated a scheduled commercial service outside China since entering passenger service in May 2023. It also represents a significant step in Beijing’s effort to establish the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) as a credible competitor to Boeing’s 737 MAX and Airbus’s A320neo.

The C919 is a single-aisle aircraft designed to carry up to 174 passengers. The international service is an opportunity for COMAC to demonstrate the aircraft’s reliability and operating performance beyond its home market.

Air China received its first C919 in August 2024 and now operates 12 of the aircraft. The carrier said its C919 fleet has completed more than 12,000 safe flights and carried over 1.62 million passengers. Across Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines, C919 aircraft have opened 58 routes serving 26 cities and carried more than 7.5 million passengers.

Despite that progress, COMAC faces major obstacles before it can seriously challenge the established manufacturers globally. The C919 remains heavily dependent on foreign suppliers, including CFM International, the joint venture between GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines that supplies its engines.

The C919 has not received certification from major US or European aviation regulators, restricting its ability to enter many international markets. Analysts say regulatory approval, supply-chain resilience and production scale will be critical to its long-term success.

COMAC’s production remains small compared with its Western rivals. Analyst Andreas Mischer of the Mercator Institute for China Studies said COMAC had delivered 32 C919s by the end of 2025 and another eight in the first half of 2026. By comparison, Airbus delivered around 100 narrow-body aircraft to China in 2025 alone.

That leaves COMAC well short of its stated ambition to produce 200 aircraft a year by 2029.

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The agreement will extend Google Workspace and Google Cloud services to 35,000 Ryanair employees across its network as Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers prepares for further expansion.

At the centre of the partnership is Gemini Enterprise, Google Cloud’s agentic AI platform, which Ryanair will use to develop customised AI agents capable of connecting organisational data, automating workflows and supporting operational decisions.

The airline said the technology would be used to optimise flight crew logistics, improve decision-making and support corporate productivity and customer service. Google’s AI tools will also be deployed in fleet operations and maintenance scheduling.

Ryanair will use Google DeepMind models, including AlphaEvolve and WeatherNext, as part of its operational technology strategy. The carrier will also replace its existing collaboration systems with Google Workspace.

The agreement forms part of Ryanair’s broader dual-cloud strategy. The airline already uses Amazon Web Services and said adding Google Cloud would improve resilience by allowing critical workloads to be distributed across multiple providers.

The strategy is designed to reduce the risk of technology outages disrupting flights and customer services. If one cloud platform experiences problems, Ryanair said its systems will be able to shift workloads and keep critical services operating.

“To support this growth, we need to ensure we have excellent infrastructure resilience,” Ryanair chief executive Eddie Wilson said. He added that the partnership would help drive greater efficiency while supporting the airline’s expansion plans.

Ryanair currently carries around 216 million passengers a year across approximately 3,900 daily flights. It is targeting 300 million passengers annually by 2034, supported by an order for 300 Boeing 737 aircraft.

The scale of that planned expansion is increasing pressure on airlines to use technology to manage increasingly complex operations. AI is being adopted across the aviation industry for areas ranging from customer service and flight operations to aircraft maintenance and workforce planning.

For Ryanair, the Google partnership is aimed not simply at adding AI tools but at embedding them into the systems that run the airline. Automating routine decisions and improving crew and maintenance planning could help the carrier handle greater passenger volumes while controlling costs.

Google Cloud vice-president for the United Kingdom, Ireland and Sub-Saharan Africa, Maureen Costello, said the agreement demonstrated how generative AI, combined with modern collaboration tools, could help businesses scale securely and reduce operational costs.

The deal gives Ryanair access to Google’s AI capabilities while allowing it to maintain its existing relationship with AWS. The resulting multi-cloud infrastructure is intended to provide both operational flexibility and greater protection against technology failures as the airline works towards its 2034 passenger target.

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Boeing also booked 30 new orders after adjusting for cancellations in July, which include ⁠a handful of orders announced during a subdued Farnborough Airshow. Airbus, on the other hand, ⁠booked 204 orders in the same month. For the venture, the ratio brought the total this year to 1,024, or 1,090 after adjustments including the cancellations of 15 A330neos for AirAsia X as part of a deal ⁠to buy 150 A220s.

Boeing’s July deliveries included 39 of its best-selling 737 MAX jet and 10 787s, as well as one 777 freighter and three 767s.

Taking the July numbers in consideration, Boeing has delivered 367 jets so far in 2026, including 279 737 MAX and 50 787 jets.

Boeing’s biggest order announcement at Farnborough was for 100 737 MAX jets from Irish leasing giant SMBC Aviation, the world’s second-largest ⁠leasing company. That order, though, was booked in June as from an unidentified customer.

Till July 2026, Boeing ⁠has booked more than 130 orders for the 737-10, the largest MAX variant, according to the company.

Talking about Airbus, the European planemaker needs to deliver an average of 90 jets a month between now and the rest of the year to meet its target after posting flat deliveries ‌in July, as per the latest company data.

At its recent earnings results, the European planemaker sounded confident of reaching its full-year target of around 870 deliveries and took a more conciliatory tone towards Pratt & Whitney in the current dispute over engine supplies.

Airbus’ July deliveries of 67 jets ⁠remained unchanged from the same month in 2025, bringing the total for the year so far to 418 jets following a slow start.

While CEO Guillaume Faury said that the wording of the company’s target of “around 870” aircraft was consistent with deliveries up to 890 units, as per the reports, Airbus is internally pushing staff to achieve more than 900 ‌deliveries by the year-end.

Airbus is also consolidating its dominant position in China, with new orders from Hainan Airlines and China Eastern. Like Boeing, the European venture too gained from SMBC Aviation’s buying spree, as it secured orders for 100 A320neo-family jets.

Talking about 737 MAX, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has already given its approval for the American giant’s best-selling narrowbody variant, after the MAX7 version cleared the stringest certification process involving incorporating and validating key improvements, while addressing recommendations from the National ⁠Transportation Safety Board, including updates to the flight-control software, flight crew alerting system, and a redesigned engine anti-ice system.

The process came after two fatal MAX 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019, along with the scrutiny of the company’s production and quality systems after a January 2024 mid-air cabin panel blowout on a nearly new Alaska Airlines MAX 9.

After clearing the years-long regulator review, Boeing will now be ramping up its preparations to support the aircraft’s first deliveries. The MAX 7 offers 135 to 160 seats while providing about 10% more range potential than other MAX planes. The Boeing 737 MAX 7 began testing in 2018.

Boeing and Southwest Airlines, the 737 MAX 7 launch customer, are now preparing for delivery of the first unit. The budget carrier does not have the MAX 7 on its current schedule, which is through March 2027.

Stephanie Pope, Boeing’s head of commercial airplanes, told employees in a memo that the planemaker learned “important lessons that we are already applying to the 737-10 and that are accelerating our work as we complete the 737 MAX airplane family and then the 777X programs.”

As per the data from the aviation analytics firm Cirium, Boeing has already built about 30 MAX 7s and nine MAX 10s, which are awaiting delivery. The MAX 10 accounts for at least 28% of outstanding MAX orders.

As per the FAA’s December 2025 statement, the MAX 10 would have an enhanced flight crew alerting system, which will include a way to shut off stall warning and overspeed alerts. The regulator, during last year, gave Boeing approval to raise its 737 MAX production to 42 planes per month, ending a 38-plane cap put in place since ⁠January 2024 after the Alaska incident. In March 2026, the vehicle was allowed to hike the monthly production ratio to 47.

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Under the terms of the deal, EasyJet shareholders will receive 7.15 pound a share, a price Apollo had tabled last month after the airline’s board initially recommended a rival offer from Castlelake.

Castlelake had been given until 5 pm on Friday to table a final bid but declined to escalate the contest, saying it was “very appreciative” of its engagement with the EasyJet board.

Founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou and his family will retain a shareholding under the new ownership structure, with existing investors offered the option to sell or transfer stakes up to a maximum of 49.9%.

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The announcement, made on 19 July, marks the point at which a deal signed in Washington five months ago turns into metal on the ramp. Griffin and VietJet signed the financing agreement for six 737 MAX 8 jets in February, in a transaction the airline valued at roughly USD 965 million at list prices.

That agreement formed part of a wider package of commitments with American partners worth around USD 6.3 billion, signed on the sidelines of a state visit by Vietnamese leader To Lam to the United States.

A new financing partner
Both sides framed the delivery as the start of a long relationship rather than a one-off transaction. Jose Kling, Griffin’s head of commercial for Asia Pacific, said the lessor was pleased to welcome VietJet as a new customer and expected to support its operations for years to come, adding that the new-technology aircraft suited the carrier’s modernisation and expansion plans across its various operating markets.

Nguyen Thanh Son, VietJet’s chief executive, said the aircraft reinforce the airline’s commitment to a modern and fuel-efficient fleet while allowing it to widen regional and international connectivity. When the financing was first signed in February, Son held the title of managing director.

He was promoted to chief executive in April 2026, so the different titles across the two announcements reflect a career step rather than any inconsistency.

Speaking at the time of the original signing, he said the agreements reflected the airline’s push to broaden its international partnerships and build a modern, sustainable fleet.

For VietJet, the language about diversifying funding sources matters as much as the aircraft themselves. The carrier has openly described the Griffin arrangement as a step towards spreading its international funding base.

Low-cost airlines in Asia have historically leaned heavily on a narrow group of lessors and export credit agencies. Widening that pool reduces refinancing risk at a time when capital costs remain elevated and delivery schedules are anything but predictable.

Two Boeing tracks, one strategy
The Griffin lease sits alongside, rather than inside, VietJet’s much larger direct order with Boeing. That order began with a 100-jet commitment signed in Hanoi in May 2016 during a state visit by then US president Barack Obama, and was doubled to 200 aircraft through a memorandum signed at the 2018 Farnborough Airshow.

The additional 100 jets were confirmed as a firm contract worth USD 12.7 billion at list prices in February 2019, at a Hanoi ceremony witnessed by then US president Donald Trump during the US-North Korea summit, taking the full commitment to a value of roughly USD 24 billion.

Deliveries were originally pencilled in for 2019 to 2023, but the global MAX grounding and the pandemic pushed the timeline back by the best part of a decade. VietJet, long an Airbus-dominated operator, took its first aircraft from that direct order only last year.

The six Griffin jets are a separate transaction on top of that order book, part of a broader push by VietJet to bring forward capacity through leasing while its own Boeing order works through its backlog.

As of late 2025, when the first directly ordered MAX arrived, VietJet was operating around 121 aircraft with an average age of just over eight years, spanning A320-family narrowbodies, A330 widebodies, COMAC ARJ21s and Dash 8 turboprops.

The net effect is the same either way. The fleet is shifting from single-manufacturer simplicity to a dual-source model, financed through a mix of direct ownership and leasing.

Griffin’s Asian expansion
Griffin is a comparatively young name in a business dominated by AerCap, SMBC Aviation Capital and Avolon.

The company was founded by aviation executive Ryan McKenna and built through a partnership with Bain Capital Credit, which supplies capital to acquire and lease aircraft globally while Griffin handles lease management.

The business now runs offices in Dublin, Tokyo, Singapore, Puerto Rico and Los Angeles, and positions itself as a provider of bespoke capital solutions to airlines, manufacturers and financiers.

Its scale has grown quickly. In late 2025 Griffin closed an inaugural USD 1.245 billion series into its mid-life aircraft master trust platform, an issuance McKenna described as the largest in the history of the aircraft securitisation market, backed by 25 narrowbody and widebody aircraft with a weighted average age of 4.1 years on lease to 19 airlines across 15 countries.

Asia has been central to that growth. Griffin agreed a purchase and leaseback of ten Boeing 737-8s with Air India Express in December 2023. Sarit Chopra, a partner at Bain Capital, called India one of the fastest-growing aviation hubs in the world at the time, citing policy support and rising travel demand.

Vietnam is the logical next stop. Adding VietJet gives Griffin exposure to a carrier whose growth story runs alongside a national travel market expanding at pace.

Vietnam’s aviation boom
The backdrop is a country adding capacity across every major carrier at once. Boeing’s announcement of the Vietnam Airlines order cited estimates that Vietnamese air traffic could double to more than 75 million passengers a year over the next decade.

In February, three Vietnamese carriers placed orders totalling roughly 96 aircraft worth over USD 30 billion, with Vietnam Airlines finalising an USD 8.1 billion deal for 50 737 MAX 8s scheduled for delivery between 2030 and 2032, and Sun PhuQuoc Airways committing to as many as 40 787-9 Dreamliners.

The scramble for earlier capacity has continued since. At the Farnborough International Airshow this week, Vietnam Airlines said it would add 19 leased 737 MAX 8s from SMBC Aviation Capital, Avolon and Phoenix Aviation Capital, with deliveries due in 2028. These arrangements point to carriers working around production backlogs and long lead times by turning to lessors for nearer-term aircraft.

That is precisely the gap Griffin is selling into. When manufacturers cannot promise delivery slots, the lessors holding order positions become the fastest route to new metal.

Fuel costs cloud the picture
The expansion is not happening in benign conditions. Vietnam Airlines reported pre-tax profit of about VND3.95 trillion, roughly USD 150.1 million, at parent level in the first quarter of 2026, but said its performance was badly affected from April onwards by a sharp rise in jet fuel prices linked to the conflict involving Iran. Low-cost carriers with thin margins and high aircraft utilisation feel that squeeze quickly.

For VietJet, newer aircraft are part of the answer. A MAX 8 burns meaningfully less fuel per seat than the older narrowbodies it replaces, which turns fleet renewal from a branding exercise into a hedge against energy prices. Leasing rather than buying keeps the capital cost off the balance sheet while the fuel benefit accrues immediately.

What to watch
The remaining five aircraft in the Griffin package will show whether this becomes a durable relationship or a single transaction.

Also worth watching is how VietJet allocates the jets across its group operations, and whether the airline returns to Griffin for widebody financing as it weighs long-haul ambitions. For Griffin, the deal is a foothold in a market where nearly every carrier is buying at once.

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Boeing’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat made its first-ever static appearance, shown alongside a Brimstone missile, while General Atomics and Anduril Industries brought full-scale models of their own uncrewed fighters. None of these machines are meant to fly wars alone.

They fly beside a human pilot, taking on the jobs nobody wants to risk a cockpit for. The industry calls them loyal wingmen, or “Collaborative Combat Aircraft,” and they are central to most major air forces’ future planning.

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A wingman drone is built to operate in close coordination with a manned fighter. That might mean flying ahead to draw out enemy radar, jamming an opponent’s sensors, carrying spare missiles to extend a fighter’s magazine, or simply giving an adversary another target to worry about.

These aircraft are cheaper to build, and cheaper to lose, than a crewed jet, which changes the arithmetic of risk considerably for a commander deciding what to send into contested airspace.

Artificial intelligence (AI) does the actual flying, holding formation and reacting to threats from only high-level direction, though in every programme examined for this piece, the decision to pull the trigger still sits with a person.

Washington’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft programme has the biggest head start. General Atomics and Anduril were chosen in 2024 to build the first generation, designated the YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A.

The General Atomics design, drawn from its Gambit family of drones and nicknamed Dark Merlin, first flew in August 2025 and carries its weapons in an internal bay. Anduril’s YFQ-44A, developed from the “Fury” aircraft it inherited when it bought Blue Force Technologies, followed two months later, mounting its weapons externally to trade some stealth for lower cost.

Both are built to a combat radius requirement of over 700 nautical miles and are estimated at $25 million to $30 million per aircraft, about a third an F-35’s price. In June 2026 the Air Force awarded both companies production contracts, four months ahead of schedule, covering at least 150 aircraft between them by the end of the decade.

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“By moving fast from competitive selection into full-scale manufacturing,” Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said at the time, the service intends “to stay ahead of the pacing challenge.”

A month later, the YFQ-44A completed the programme’s first live weapons test over the Mojave Desert, firing an AIM-120 AMRAAM with a human operator retaining control of the release decision throughout. General Atomics has its own live-fire trial due this autumn.

Separately, six companies are competing just to write the autonomy software that will fly these jets. The Air Force has floated a total requirement of a thousand or more CCAs, and is already drafting tougher requirements for a second, more capable increment.

The finances behind these programmes are as striking as the hardware. Anduril, which builds the YFQ-44A alongside its Lattice autonomy software, closed a USD 5 billion funding round in May 2026 that valued the company at USD 61 billion, roughly double the USD 30.5 billion mark it carried twelve months earlier. Revenue rose from USD 1 billion in 2024 to an estimated USD 2.2 billion in 2025, and the company has told investors to expect USD 4.3 billion in 2026.

In March the US Army awarded it a ten-year enterprise contract with a USD 20 billion ceiling. General Atomics discloses none of this. It remains privately held by brothers Neal and Linden Blue, who bought the company in 1986 and reported USD 3.2 billion in revenue for 2024 without ever filing a public account of profit or margin. Boeing sits somewhere between the two extremes.

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Its shares were trading around USD 215 at the time of the airshow, still leaning on Ghost Bat and its wider defence and services portfolio to offset certification delays and supply-chain trouble in its commercial jet business.

The Ghost Bat itself began life a decade ago as Australia’s Loyal Wingman project, a joint effort between Boeing and the country’s Department of Defence. It carries up to 500 kilograms of payload over a range of roughly 3,700 kilometres, and an early batch of six was ordered for AUSD 115 million, around AUSD 19 million each, full production pricing undisclosed.

It has completed air-to-air missile trials and taken part in live exercises, and its Farnborough debut was a more confident showing for Boeing than its scaled-back 2024 presence, when the company was still dealing with the Alaska Airlines door-plug fallout. It is, by most accounts, the most mature design in the field, and other air forces weighing their own options keep coming back to it.

China’s efforts have moved with less fanfare but arguably greater speed. The Hongdu GJ-11 Sharp Sword, a stealthy flying wing design, is now reportedly forward deployed in Tibet, flying alongside J-20 and J-16D jets, while a naval variant, the GJ-21, has been spotted in trials tied to catapult launches from China’s newest carriers. A separate, lower-cost design, the Feihong FH-97A, is built to fly with the J-20 and can reportedly command its own swarm of smaller drones.

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Rehearsals for Beijing’s 2025 Victory Day parade featured five distinct loyal wingman prototypes, four of which appeared in the final procession, prompting speculation in state media that China may be first to field an operationally ready design, ahead of the United States. Beijing has already begun marketing the technology abroad too, showing an export version of the Sharp Sword to the United Arab Emirates in February.

Europe’s picture is messier. The UK, Italy and Japan are jointly developing the Global Combat Air Programme, known in Britain as Tempest, and the Royal Air Force has named its own drone element Storm Fighter, backed by more than four hundred million pounds as part of a stated ambition to build Europe’s first sixth-generation air force.

Italy’s Leonardo has partnered with Turkey’s Baykar to trial its Kizilelma drone in the role, and the two firms used Farnborough to release fresh results from their K-SWARM trials, in which a manned M-346 jet directed two Kizilelma aircraft through a full formation flight using nothing but high-level commands.

That success contrasts with the rival Franco-German-Spanish effort, whose next-generation fighter component was scrapped in June 2026 after Paris and Berlin could not agree on who would build what. The British Army is running its own smaller version of the same idea through Project NYX, inviting seven companies to design drones that can fly escort for Apache attack helicopters.

Turkey’s Baykar has begun mass production of the Kizilelma, an unmanned stealth fighter that dropped a TEBER-82 guided bomb in a 2025 test, is due to enter Turkish service this year, and is being pitched, beyond its Italian trials, as a candidate for Tempest as well.

Russia’s answer is the Sukhoi S-70 Okhotnik-B, a heavy flying wing aircraft with a claimed range around 6,000 kilometres, a combat radius of 3,000 to 4,000 kilometres and an internal payload above 2,000 kilograms, meant to operate alongside the Su-57.

Its combat record has been a cautionary tale for the whole field. In 2024, one Okhotnik reportedly lost its data link over Ukraine, drifted off course, and was shot down by a Russian Su-57, exposing exactly the kind of communications and fail-safe weaknesses that every other programme is racing to design around.

Moscow has since offered the pairing to India, alongside a twin-seat “drone commander” version of the Su-57. India has its own project regardless. Hindustan Aeronautics’ CATS Warrior, intended to fly with the Tejas fighter and carry the indigenous Smart Anti-Airfield Weapon along with other precision munitions, completed an engine ground run on its full-scale demonstrator in early 2025.

None of this is without risk. Anduril’s own record is a useful check on the marketing. In November 2025 the Wall Street Journal reported a string of setbacks across its autonomous systems, including engine damage to a Fury airframe during a ground test that summer, more than a dozen Navy vessels malfunctioning during a California exercise, and Ukrainian forces withdrawing Anduril’s Altius loitering munitions from front-line use in 2024 after repeated failures against Russian jamming.

Anduril calls this a selective reading of routine development setbacks. The US Congressional Research Service, separately, has flagged for lawmakers how much decision-making authority to hand autonomous software as it matures, and whether the Air Force has planned adequately for storing, transporting and sustaining hundreds of large uncrewed aircraft.

What all of this adds up to is a bet that autonomy and affordability, not just stealth and speed, will decide the next era of air combat. Six companies competing for a single software contract in the United States shows where the real fight now sits.

Every airframe shown at Farnborough this month is still only half the story. None of them fly themselves without someone, somewhere, deciding whether they get to pull the trigger.

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The weak results for Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers, are the latest sign of how the five-month-old Iran war is putting massive pressure on aviation companies, especially budget carriers, by keeping the oil prices at elevated levels.

Setting aside the truce that was agreed upon last month, American forces hit Iran for a ninth consecutive day, with Tehran returning the favor with equal intensity. However, the nation’s foreign ⁠ministry also expressed eagerness to restart negotiations with Washington based on national interests. The geopolitical flip-flop has also resulted in extreme volatilities in oil prices.

“The price of our 20% unhedged fuel doubled in the quarter, and fares fell 6%, primarily we think due to the impact of the Middle East conflict and the timing of Easter,” Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said in a video presentation.

The Irish airline reported after-tax profit of 538 million euro (USD 616 million) for its fiscal first quarter through June 30, down 34% from the 2025 and short of a forecast of 579 million euro in a company poll of analysts. The airline also said it was too early to issue a full-year profit forecast, which would depend heavily on last-minute bookings over the remainder of the summer.

However, Ryanair still sees itself better positioned than most rivals because 80% of its fuel requirements to the end of March are hedged at USD 67 per barrel, compared to recent peaks around USD 150.

Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Neil Sorahan said the airline stepped in to hedge 15% of its fuel needs for the year-to-date-March 2028 at USD 85 per barrel ⁠following the June interim ceasefire between Iran and the United States.

“Weakness in fares is likely to be short-lived, however, as European aviation is facing a wave of consolidation and airlines going bust that will take out ⁠capacity. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a number of casualties this winter … there are a few people very much on the edge,” Sorahan said.

The Ryanair CFO also sees a significant capacity cut in Europe in the coming months, which, as per him, “could be positive ⁠for pricing, and a lot more may be taken out in summer 2027.”

“The possible sale of British rival easyJet, which is the subject of a bidding war, could also lead to a reduction in capacity and could trigger a domino effect of consolidation in Europe,” Sorahan said.

Talking about the impact of the surging oil prices on the UK aviation circle, Irish airline Aer Lingus could cut up to 500 jobs as part of a reorganization, citing high costs and a challenging economic ‌environment.

“The airline, which has already cut senior management roles by a quarter, plans to reduce wider employee costs by about the same ⁠level while making network changes to remove lower-margin flying,” it said last week.

That would lower the carrier’s overall capacity by 6%, including some long-haul and short-haul routes, it said, adding that it was also focused on reducing supplier costs.

Aer Lingus’ parent company, London-listed IAG, issued a profit warning in May 2026, cautioning that high jet fuel ‌costs ⁠and supply disruptions due to the war would weigh more heavily on earnings than previously expected.

“Our accelerated transformation aims to … ensure the airline is a strong investment case and able to weather the ⁠turbulence in our industry,” Aer Lingus Chief Executive Lynne Embleton remarked.

The airline, which operates over 100 routes between Europe ⁠and North America, is aiming for an operating margin of 12%-15% over the medium term to attract investment.

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The US planemaker, however, trails European rival Airbus, which delivered 89 ⁠jets in June and 351 in the first half of the year. Boeing’s deliveries will likely rise in the second half of the year as the venture increases output of its best-selling 737 MAX. The company currently is increasing 737 output from 42 jets a month to 47.

Boeing’s June deliveries included 42 737 MAXs and 13 787s. Its 787 deliveries included five jets that had ‌been ⁠held up by seat certification delays to Saudi Arabia-based startup airline Riyadh Air. Boeing also delivered three 777 freighters and five 767s, including three for conversion into KC-46 aerial refuelling tankers by the company’s defence division.

Boeing booked ⁠121 new orders and eight cancellations in June, for a net total of 113 new orders. The aerospace giant has so far received 7,206 orders for the 737 ⁠MAX, surpassing its previous best-selling 737 Next Generation, which received 7,159 orders.

Talking about the 737 MAX, Boeing is also in the final stages of getting regulatory certification for an engine anti-ice system fix for the jetliner, paving the way for the long-delayed MAX 7 and 10 versions to enter ‌service.

The redesign has been done to address a mechanical issue that could cause overheating and possible engine failure. The issue, as per the company’s executives, has been the biggest obstacle to certification of the smallest and largest versions of Boeing’s best-selling jet.

As per the aviation analytics firm Cirium, Boeing has already built about 30 MAX 7s and nine MAX 10s awaiting delivery. The larger MAX 10 accounts for at least 28% of outstanding MAX orders.

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in May it expected to certify the smaller 737 MAX 7 this summer. South-west Airlines has been the biggest customer for that version. As per the planemaker, the more profitable MAX 10 is 98% through certification flight testing.

“We have two flight tests left, and we should be done real soon here,” said Chris Payne, Boeing vice president and general manager for 737 MAX development programmes.

Certification of the MAX 7 and 10 is years behind schedule, which has allowed European planemaker Airbus to expand its lead in the narrowbody market through its popular A320 and A321 families and their Neo and XLR variants.

Boeing has already undergone a stringent certification process following two fatal MAX 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019. Apart from that, regulators, especially the FAA, carried out intensive scrutiny of the company’s production and quality systems after a January 2024 mid-air cabin panel blowout on a nearly new Alaska Airlines MAX 9.

After the anti-ice system issue was discovered in 2021, regulators allowed the MAX variants already in service – the MAX 8, 8-200 and 9 – to continue flying and for Boeing to keep making the aircraft but delayed certification of the other versions.

“The fix to the system also reduces engine noise and mitigates fan flutter, based on testing at GE ‌Aerospace’s Ohio facility,” said Mike Sinnett, Boeing’s senior vice president of product strategy, product development and development programmes.

The 737 MAX’s LEAP-1B engine is produced by CFM International, a joint venture of GE Aerospace and France’s Safran. Once the certification is done, Boeing will do the retrofitting of the engine anti-icing mechanism during the routine maintenance shifts, during which the aircraft will also go through intensive new wiring.

Keeping this in mind, Boeing has been working with regulators on a schedule that would allow airlines to make the ⁠repair when their planes are already in the hangar for heavy maintenance checks, reducing disruption and costs.

The MAX 10 will also introduce an updated flight crew alerting system, known as an enhanced angle-of-attack system, to meet safety requirements imposed by the US Congress following the two MAX crashes that killed 346 people and led to the model’s 20-month grounding beginning in 2019.

The system ⁠simplifies flight-deck alerts resulting from a failed angle-of-attack sensor, which overwhelmed pilots with “too much information” before the planes crashed in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

“The update is an IOU from the return-to-service (requirements) after the very unfortunate accidents. All in-service 737 MAX jets will have the new system installed within ⁠two years after regulators certify it,” said Bill Quashnock, Boeing’s 737 deputy chief pilot.

“Boeing is also more than 50% through certification flight testing for the 777-9 and is on track to start delivering the new widebody jet next year,” said Terry Beezhold, Boeing vice president and general manager of the 777-9 programme.

“The company still has to complete several major certification requirements, including getting regulatory approval for long-distance flights with few airports in between,” the official concluded.

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The renewed hostilities are less a fresh shock than a relapse. Since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran at the end of February, the Strait – the corridor that once carried roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil and gas – has swung between closure, partial reopening, and renewed disruption several times over.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in mid-June was meant to end the war and the blockade, but, within days.

Iran said it had closed the Strait again, blaming continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon, a claim the Washington denied. Tanker traffic did partially recover by late June after the US Navy widened a route near Oman, but the reprieve was brief.

The latest flare-up is the most serious yet. On July 7, two tankers – the Qatari-flagged LNG carrier Al Rekayat and the Saudi-flagged supertanker Wedyan – were struck by projectiles inside the Strait, with Al Rekayat evacuated after an engine-room fire. A third vessel was hit within a day, prompting Washington to reimpose sanctions on Iranian oil exports, and launch a new round of strikes on Iranian military sites.

Early on July 12, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy declared the strait closed after saying it had fired warning shots at a ship using an unauthorised route.

By July 13, Brent crude had jumped more than 4% as the two sides traded fresh attacks, touching its highest level since June 22, with US Central Command saying it had struck dozens of Iranian targets overnight, and Iran retaliating with missile and drone strikes on the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain.

Shipping data underline how thin the traffic has become: Only six vessels crossed the strait in a 12-hour window last Thursday (July 9) and Friday (July 10), against 18 to 22 daily crossings earlier in the month.

Why Europe, specifically, is exposed
The physical geography of the crisis matters less than the industrial geography behind it. Decades of refinery consolidation across Britain, France and Germany left the continent unusually reliant on imported jet fuel rather than domestic refining capacity, and the Gulf had historically supplied around half of that need.

When the war first disrupted flows in the spring, analysts initially expected African economies – almost entirely dependent on Middle Eastern jet fuel – to suffer worst. Instead, Europe has become the more structurally exposed market by mid-summer, even as it has scrambled successfully to plug the gap.

That scramble has been real. Refiners in Italy lifted jet fuel output by around 10% in the first four months of the year, with Eni, which controls roughly half the country’s refining capacity, importing semi-finished feedstock from outside Europe to keep output rising, according to industry sources.

Cargoes have arrived from unfamiliar directions too: Canada, South Korea and India have all stepped in alongside the United States and Nigeria, with Kuwaiti barrels due back on the market in August for the first time since early March. The result was that European jet fuel imports hit 673,000 barrels per day in June, their highest level since October 2025.

Yet, the buffer this has bought is measured in days, not months. Energy Aspects data from mid-June already pointed to a European supply deficit of close to 600,000 barrels a day for the third quarter – a stark contrast with projected surpluses in both the US and Asia-Pacific.

Inventories of 38 million barrels at the start of June compare with roughly 99 million held in the United States, leaving Europe with under 30 days of demand cover by some estimates – the tightest cushion of any major jet fuel market, even after accounting for higher year-on-year stock levels reported by the IEA.

The view from Brussels – and the airlines
European officials have tried to project calm without denying the underlying strain. EU Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas insisted in the spring that there was no evidence of “actual shortages,” even as the bloc weighed importing more jet fuel from the US and considered new minimum reserve quotas.

More recently, EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen has acknowledged that stocks are likely to tighten further as the summer holiday season peaks, and that Brussels stands ready to coordinate releases from national reserves if the situation deteriorates. That warning looks more urgent now than it did a month ago, given the weekend’s escalation.

Airlines have already adjusted. Lufthansa cut roughly 20,000 short-haul flights through October earlier this year as fuel costs bit into margins, part of a broader pattern of European carriers trimming schedules to conserve fuel rather than let costs spiral unchecked.

Fuel typically accounts for a fifth to a quarter of airline’s operating costs, which is why price swings translate quickly into capacity decisions rather than simply being absorbed. Jet fuel prices in northwest Europe had eased to around USD 133 a barrel from a record above USD 215 at the end of March, a genuine improvement, but the latest exchange of strikes threatens to reverse that trend just as summer travel demand peaks.

What happens next hinges on days, not weeks
Rystad Energy’s Janiv Shah has flagged continued tightness through August as the base case even without further escalation. The renewed fighting makes that base case look optimistic. Brent’s climb toward USD 79 a barrel on July 13, against USD 74 for US crude, reflects markets pricing in a real chance that the June MoU does not hold.

Bloomberg reported Iran declaring the Strait closed “until further notice,” a claim US Central Command disputed, arguing its own strikes were aimed at preserving freedom of navigation rather than restricting it – a dispute that itself signals how fragile the informal arrangements underpinning tanker traffic have become.

For European travellers, the practical upshot for now is less about outright shortages than about capacity and cost: Fewer seats, thinner schedules and airfares that are unlikely to fall even as crude eases from its spring peaks, because demand for the reduced number of available seats remains strong.

Whether that holds through the rest of the summer depends on something no analyst can model with confidence – whether Washington and Tehran can re-establish even the fragile truce that briefly reopened the Strait in June, or whether the current exchange of strikes marks the start of a more sustained third phase of the conflict.

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