Connecting Skies • Bridging Continents
The US Department of Transportation has extended its enforcement pause on four provisions of the 2024 Wheelchair Rule from December 2026 to April 2027, and has added a fifth: the annual hands-on flight attendant training requirement for on-board wheelchair and lavatory accessibility, due to take effect on 2 October 2026. The addition follows a request […]
EirTrade Aviation Maintenance has secured authorisations from the Bailiwick of Guernsey 2-REG, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Cayman Islands and the Bermuda Civil Aviation Authority for its facility at Ireland West Airport Knock, opening the site to the offshore registries on which much of the aircraft leasing industry places its assets. FOLLOWING THE REGISTRIES
SAS has been named Europe’s most punctual airline in Cirium’s On-Time Performance report for July 2026, recording an 84.32 per cent on-time arrival rate during peak summer — a figure below its own full-year 2025 average, which illustrates how much harder July is than the rest of the calendar. A RANKING WON IN THE MONTH
Emirates and South African Airways have expanded their codeshare into a reciprocal agreement covering nine new routes — three South African domestic and six regional links from Johannesburg into the DRC, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Regulatory approvals have been secured, ending an arrangement that has operated on a unilateral basis since 1997. FROM UNILATERAL
Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, the US Air Force Test Pilot School and industry partners have demonstrated sensor-driven autonomy on a fighter aircraft, with an AI agent aboard the X-62 VISTA using targeting information from an operational Legion Pod sensor to fly 27 intercepts against a live T-38 across eight flights. CLOSING THE SENSOR-TO-ACTION LOOP IN
The Fuerza Aeroespacial Colombiana has signed for two KC-390 Millennium multi-mission aircraft with mission equipment, an integrated support package and an offset programme, making Colombia the thirteenth country to select the type and adding an aerial refuelling capability configured to operate alongside its recently acquired Gripen fighters. A TANKER-TRANSPORT CHOSEN WITH THE FIGHTER FLEET IN
Joby Aviation and Atoms, the industrial AI and infrastructure company founded by Travis Kalanick, have formed a strategic partnership to acquire and develop vertiport sites in Florida, New York, Texas and California — the markets where Joby is preparing early operations under the FAA’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program. BUILDING THE GROUND SIDE BEFORE THE AIRCRAFT
Airlink will launch three weekly flights between Johannesburg Lanseria and Harare from 15 November 2026, operated by an Embraer E190. It will be the first scheduled airline service ever flown between the privately owned airport north-west of Johannesburg and the Zimbabwean capital, and Airlink’s first scheduled operation from Lanseria. A SECOND JOHANNESBURG GATEWAY ON SOUTHERN
A joint project involving Israel Aerospace Industries, the Technion, the Israel Innovation Authority, the Ministry of National Security and the Israel Fire and Rescue Authority has completed the first flight test of a fire detection system mounted on the APUS 25 VTOL drone, capable of locating fire outbreaks to metre-level accuracy and transmitting alerts directly
Willie Walsh has assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer at IndiGo, four decades after beginning his aviation career as an Aer Lingus pilot and days after concluding his tenure as Director General of IATA. He inherits an airline operating more than 430 aircraft and nearly 2,200 daily flights, with an explicit mandate to accelerate