Ryanair has achieved the Number 1 position in the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) Top 100 Airlines ranking, having carried 79.6m international passengers last year.

The squeeze continues. Joining several other airlines that have packed their cabins with extra seats, American Airlines said it plans to follow suit on its Boeing 737 and MD-80 planes, which make up more than 60% of the fleet.

United Airlines now features 180-degree flat-bed seats and personal on-demand entertainment in the premium cabins on all scheduled, long-haul international flights from the airline’s eight North American hubs and between Seattle and Tokyo Narita.

Amid the proliferation of Web connectivity for airline passengers, air-safety experts are examining growing pilot reliance on portable electronic devices in cockpits.

The U.S. and Europe increasingly are moving in different directions to modernize air-traffic-control networks and the result threatens to undermine progress on both sides of the Atlantic, according to a top Federal Aviation Administration official.

Development of a new airplane takes time. No one knows that better than Hideo Egawa, the chief executive of Mitsubishi Aircraft, who has had to tell buyers of the Mitsubishi Regional Jet, the company’s first commercial airplane since the 1960s, that take-off will be delayed.

Air New Zealand looks set to deliver on its objective to more than double earnings for FY2013, saying it is on track to achieve underlying earnings in at the “upper end” of the NZD235 million to NZD260 million (USD209 million) guidance provided in Apr-2013. If achieved, the result will nearly triple the FY2012 profit of NZD91 million (USD73 million) and build on the 300% improvement reported in the first half of the financial year.