Nostalgia for the post-war Kangaroo Route flown in multiple leaps on Lockheed Constellations and chief executive s Alan Joyce s eloquence about breaking the tyranny of distance ensured the debut of Qantas s direct service from Perth to London gained arguably more global media coverage than the launch of even longer flights by its Gulf-based rivals in recent years.

With just a year to go before the UK is scheduled to formally leave the European Union, the reality of what this will mean for airlines with significant British operations or ownership is still far from clear.

Singapore Airlines took delivery of its latest regional aircraft this week: the first 787-10 handed over to a customer by Boeing.

Few airline markets have shown as much movement as Germany over the past year, amid the jockeying for position that accompanied first the attempts to save Air Berlin and subsequently the backfilling of capacity the Oneworld carrier vacated.