Runway Girl

Saudia recently took delivery of the first of 15 A321XLR twinjets, and quickly pressed it into revenue service, in a proud moment for the Saudi Arabian flag carrier.

Delivered on 24 May, the 144-seat aircraft (HZ-ASBA) has linked Saudia’s Jeddah hub with Vienna, Paris and Riyadh, and plied Riyadh-Rome since its 3 June debut, according to FlightRadar24.

Featuring a highly premium, low-density interior, the longhaul narrowbody boasts a 1-1-configured business class cabin with 24 doored suites based on Thompson Aero Seating’s VantageSOLO inward-facing herringbone, and a 3-3- configured economy class cabin with 120 Safran Z400 seats.

Panasonic Avionics’ next-gen 4K OLED-based Astrova IFE is fitted from nose to tail.

Full story: https://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/06/saudia-a321xlr-is-low-density-high-premium-and-now-flying/

United Airlines this week unveiled a spectacular ‘Stars and Stripes’ livery on a SpaceX Starlink-fitted Boeing 737-800 at the airline's widebody hangar at Washington Dulles.

The new livery celebrates America’s 250th Anniversary and pays tribute to the nearly 600 military pilots who have transitioned to commercial operations via the United Airlines Military Pilot Program since 2024.

Painted in Amarillo, Texas, United’s new red, white and blue custom livery design has also been applied to a Boeing 787-10. Both aircraft (registrations N91007 and N78285) will include a commemorative plaque dedicated to United’s active-duty service members and veterans.

“It is an honor to be standing here today, celebrating this aircraft and what it means for our nation’s 250th birthday,” United CEO Scott Kirby said in front of an audience of United employees, local dignitaries, partners, and members of the media, including Runway Girl Network.

“I truly love this country and everything it stands for,” he declared.

Full story: https://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/06/united-airlines-leans-into-americas-250th-with-stars-and-stripes-livery/

All images credited to Mary Kirby unless otherwise marked.

A team at the University of Glasgow’s James Watt School of Engineering has developed complex simulation software which, for the first time, accurately models the real-time interaction between an aircraft and the wildfire it is fighting.

The University of Glasgow’s Professor George Barakos, Dr. Tao Zhang, and postgraduate student Oyedoyin Dada, along with Dr. Lu You of China’s Guizhou University, recently published their game-changing work in A framework for aerial firefighting simulation, a paper published in the CEAS Aeronautical Journal.

Barakos has a special interest in the numerical and physical simulation of flows, especially in terms of rotary wings, including helicopter and eVTOL rotors, tiltrotors, and wind turbines. Meanwhile, the James Watt School of Engineering boasts a generic flight simulator, known as Daedalus I. Combined with Barakos’ vivid experience of wildfires in his native Greece, he found the prospect of modelling helicopter interactions with fires an attractive challenge.

Mounted on a six-degrees-of-freedom motion platform, Daedalus I includes a dome for 270-degree visuals and replica helicopter controls. Dada explained its versatility from the erstwhile instructor’s station: “The system is fully integrated and as we develop the program, we can simply switch the flight model and controls to suit different aircraft, including fixed-wing.”

The fire simulation element currently sits alongside Daedalus I, running on a separate computer and essentially inserting graphics and flight behavior into the ‘regular’ simulation. Mindful that high costs could be a barrier to widescale introduction, the Glasgow team runs its software using the Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics card of a commercially available gaming PC.

Full story: https://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/06/simulation-breakthrough-could-spark-aerial-firefighter-training-revolution/

Unum Aircraft Seating has carried over key elements of its Unum One outward-facing herringbone to its new 21.5″-wide Unum Two forward-facing offset staggered lie-flat seat. An Airbus A350-optimized version of Unum Two was unveiled for the first time at this year’s Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX) in Hamburg.

Pointing at the Boeing 787-optimized Unum One seat on the firm’s stand at AIX, founder and CEO Chris Brady noted that “the dentist chair part of the seat” — Unum’s patented Scimitar mechanism which delivers Zero-G recline angles — plus the table and suite door mechanisms have been incorporated into the cabin-ready Unum Two for widebodies, but “in a different shape.”

Your author confesses to being a huge fan of the Zero-G (zero-gravity) position, so I quickly tested what the challenger premium seatmaker calls its “comfort hero” after sliding into Unum Two on its stand. It was a moment of sheer bliss as the leg strain I felt from hours of sprinting across the show floor quickly dissipated.

I’m certainly not the only fan. “The best comment must always be from the customer. When we launched the Scimitar mechanism back at AIX 2022 [for Unum One], a leading airline said it was the best seat kinematic at the show. Since then, we have made further refinements on comfort and seat belt placement as we have successfully navigated our way through certification,” Brady said.

It is perhaps unsurprising, then, to learn that the Scimitar mechanism has not only been incorporated into Unum Two but will be a core feature of any premium seat developed by Unum in the future. In a follow-on interview with Brady, the Unum chief noted that the system “offers infinite adjustability and a consistent experience across aircraft fleets — both widebody and single-aisle — and business-class seat families.”

Full story: https://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/06/inside-the-a350-optimized-unum-two-seat-as-revealed-at-aix/

Air Canada’s first Airbus A321XLR entered into revenue service on 9 June and will operate its first transatlantic flight between Montréal and Toulouse, France on 15 June.

Bearing the aptly named registration of C-GXLR, and sporting SES-powered 2Ku inflight connectivity, Collins Aerospace-made seats in Signature Class and economy, and Panasonic Avionics’ next-gen Astrova IFE system from nose to tail, this is the first of 30 A321XLRs earmarked for Air Canada.

Its induction heralds the start of “a whole new chapter in how — and where — Air Canada customers can fly,” the airline enthuses.

Full story: https://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/06/air-canada-glows-with-enthusiasm-as-a321xlr-enters-revenue-service/

All images credited to Air Canada except for the privacy divider, which is credited to Mary Kirby.

Air Serbia, a 98-year-old airline, has an interesting history as it nears the centennial mark.

The Air Serbia brand dates back only to 2013 when a joint venture with Etihad Airways rebuilt the airline from the ground up. While the Etihad relationship has since been dissolved, Air Serbia has continued to evolve and expand its longhaul route network, often at desirable fares.

Needing to fly from New York JFK to Zurich, I booked a business class ticket via Belgrade directly on Air Serbia’s website. It was a straightforward affair, as indeed was checkin. The airline's iOS app is surprisingly robust.

Air Serbia currently operates a fleet of four Airbus A330-200s for longhaul flights in a variety of configurations. Two of the four A330s are hand-me-downs from Etihad and retain the Middle Eastern carrier’s cabins.

My flights from JFK and back were on the same aircraft equipped with the ex-Etihad interior. Outside of a few minor details like reupholstered seats and replaced monuments, the aircraft is virtually unchanged from its Etihad days.

Full trip report: https://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/06/air-serbia-a330/

Mexican ultra-low-cost carrier Viva has selected SES’s multi-orbit, electronically steerable antenna (ESA)-based inflight connectivity solution for 100 Airbus narrowbodies.

The IFC hardware is powered by SES’s geostationary (GEO) satellite network and Eutelsat’s OneWeb Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite service, for which SES is a distribution partner. It will be installed on 60 Airbus A320s and 40 A321s in Viva’s fleet.

A total of 11 Viva aircraft are already flying with the solution, an SES spokesperson tells Runway Girl Network.

Images shared by Viva show a fitted A320, registered XA-VAQ.

Full story: https://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/06/viva-taps-ses-multi-orbit-ifc-for-100-airbus-narrowbodies/

All images credited to Viva

Airbus has decided to formally develop its ultra-luxe First Class Experience for the A350-1000 widebody, revealing that certain elements of the design are already being mulled by airlines.

One year after unveiling the concept, which rearranges the entire front of the A350-1000 to enable a 1-1-1 configuration including a center-section Master Suite that can accommodate two passengers and provide access to a dedicated lavatory, Airbus has “stopped the studies” and is now “in the development phase” to deliver the First Class Experience, Airbus vice president of cabin marketing Ingo Wuggetzer said during this year’s Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg.

Driving Airbus’ decision is, broadly, the clear momentum behind first class and, specifically, the fact that its A350-1000 is serving as a flagship aircraft for airlines or is increasingly positioned to do so as the venerable Airbus A380 double-decker’s footprint diminishes in the world fleet.

Full story: https://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/05/airbus-enters-development-phase-for-ultra-luxe-first-class-experience/

American Airlines plans to fit SpaceX’s Starlink Ku-band Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite-powered IFC to more than 500 Airbus narrowbodies.

“New A321XLR and A321neo deliveries” have been earmarked for Starlink, as part of American’s wider modernization of its Airbus narrowbody fleet, the airline says.

Financial terms have not been disclosed. And it is not immediately clear which variant of American’s Airbus A320 family twinjets will be fitted first. Installs will start in the first quarter of 2027.

American is the fourth US major to adopt Starlink, following full-fleet customers United Airlines and Alaska Airlines, and partial-fleet customer Southwest Airlines. In contrast, JetBlue Airways and Delta Air Lines have selected Amazon’s forthcoming Ka-band LEO satellite-supported IFC solution, Amazon Leo, for a portion of their respective fleets.

A oneworld alliance member, American began a phased rollout of free inflight Wi-Fi early this year. It says Starlink “will enable seamless streaming, browsing and real-time communication capabilities” across its domestic and short-haul international routes.

Full story: https://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/05/american-pivots-to-starlink-for-500-plus-airbus-narrowbodies/

Airbus is open to discussing with airlines a future where the European airframer acts as the orchestrator for ferrying data over multiple inflight connectivity pipes on Airbus aircraft — or partnering with a trusted company with those proficiencies — should aviation follow the cruise industry and adopt a ‘least cost routing’ approach, Airbus revealed to RGN at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg.

On the heels of announcing a new linefit, supplier-furnished HBCplus modular architecture, which will accommodate two electronically steerable antennas in the Ku- and/or Ka-band from 2028 — and in what felt like a stunning admission — Airbus VP, head of connected aircraft program Tim Sommer confirmed that Airbus “definitely sees an interest in doing” multi-vendor, akin to maritime, and that:

"Technically, our architecture enables that very clearly with what we have. So yes, we need to see what the best business arrangement is in there.

"We’d probably be looking for partners, and you mentioned names on the market who are able actually to manage that [we mentioned edge-to-cloud network platform and Crystal Cabin Award winner Quvia, specifically]. That’s not necessarily what we see as our core business to do that.

"Let’s see if we see a strong demand from the market to have Airbus in that position. I mean, we’re open to discuss that as well, but the important thing is, you have a system which allows you to do that, which has the technical capability to do it.

"And then, as the market is evolving quickly now, we will see what, in the end, plays out [and] who is going to take that role."

Full story: https://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/05/airbus-open-to-ifc-orchestration-should-multi-vendor-take-off/