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In his first comments since the exchange of fire, U.S. President Donald Trump wrote online: “Israel and Iran must immediately stop ‘shooting.’”

Two regional officials said concerted diplomatic efforts were underway Monday to salvage the ceasefire between Iran and the United States.

One of the officials, who is involved in mediation efforts between Iran and the U.S., said the Pakistan-led mediators were furious about the Israeli strike Sunday on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which came while Pakistan’s interior minister was in Tehran in a fresh bid to push U.S.-Iranian negotiations forward.

Iran launched waves of attacks on Israel on Monday, and Israel launched strikes on central and western Iran. It was their first exchange of fire since the ceasefire.

Iranian state television reported the sound of explosions being heard in Isfahan, Karaj, Tabriz and Tehran, without immediately elaborating. Iran closed the airspace around Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport after the Israeli attack.

The semiofficial Fars and Mehr news agencies said Israeli strikes hit a petrochemical factory in the city of Mahshahr in Khuzestan province. They did not elaborate on any damage. The Israeli military later confirmed the strike on the petrochemical plant and also said it targeted truck-based missile launchers.

Israel said its strikes were in response to an Iranian missile attack. Tehran had warned on Sunday it would retaliate after Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs without warning. When Israel struck back, Iran fired again.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said it had targeted two military bases in Israel, describing the attacks as being part of Operation Nasr, or “Victory.” The Guard said it launched the missiles after Israel targeted radar sites in three areas of Iran.

Explosions could be heard in central Israel as air defenses sought to intercept incoming Iranian fire. Sirens also sounded across neighboring Jordan.

Iran blamed the United States for the escalation.

“No one believes that the Israeli regime would take any action without coordination with the United States,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said during a briefing with journalists in Tehran. “The United States bears responsibility for the Israeli regime’s aggression.”

The White House did not respond to messages about Monday’s Israeli strikes and whether they were done in coordination with the U.S.

The differences between the leaders appear to be rooted in the domestic considerations of each. Netanyahu faces elections this fall and is under heavy public pressure to strike back against ongoing Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel. He also is wary of appearing too subservient to Trump.

The U.S. president, meanwhile, also faces elections — for Congress in November — and is eager to wrap up a war that has jolted the global economy and raised prices for consumers.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed an attack on Israel on Monday and said Israel-affiliated vessels would again be a target in the Red Sea, putting the waterway, as well as the Gulf of Aden and the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting them, in danger. The statement from Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree was broadcast on the Houthis’ al-Masirah satellite news channel.

The threat might serve to further drive up oil prices since Saudi Arabia is using its East-West Pipeline to export oil through the Red Sea as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.

The Houthis made a similar threat during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and killed at least nine mariners and sank four ships in over 100 attacks, often targeting vessels with tangential or no ties to Israel.

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(Corrects name of finance minister in paragraph 12 to Koo Yun-cheol, not Choi Sang-mok)

By Cynthia Kim and Yena Park

SEOUL, June 8 (Reuters) – Seoul resident Laura Byun has long preferred U.S. mutual funds over Korean shares, but the KOSPI’s blistering rally changed that and her risk tolerance for debt.

Feeling left out by the surge that has propelled the Korean benchmark to the world’s best performer, Byun tapped a short-term bank overdraft of about 15 million won ($9,687) to buy a leveraged Samsung Electronics fund, delivering gains of about 20%.

Then came the reversal. By Monday morning, her position had swung to -17%, she said, after the KOSPI plunged by over 8% in the wake of a tech selloff in U.S. markets.

The leveraged ETF tied to the chip giant tumbled as growing bets on a Federal Reserve rate hike snapped Wall Street’s nine-week winning run, wiping out her gains and dragging her into losses.

“I’m not gonna do anything. I don’t know, I’m gonna wait for a rebound, unless like it halves or something,” Byun said.

Her experience captures a growing risk in South Korea’s markets, exposing how borrowed bets by a swelling wave of retail investors, known as “ants”, are chasing a runaway stock rally and rattling policymakers wary of sharper volatility and a painful correction.

A Bank of Korea (BOK) report on Thursday showed leveraged investment into equities by retail investors topped a record 60 trillion won ($39.06 billion) as of the end of May, as the KOSPI more than doubled in just six months to become the world’s top performer.

Powering part of that debt push was the May 27 introduction of South Korea’s first-ever single-stock leveraged ETFs linked to chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix – whose profits have soared with the AI boom – that offered investors double the daily return of the stocks.

Demand was so strong that the Korea Financial Investment Association’s (KOFIA) website crashed on the first day retail investors were required to complete mandatory training to trade the products, according to applicants such as Byun. More than 350,000 people have since completed the course, KOFIA said.

FOMO STOKES LEVERAGE RISKS

But leverage cuts both ways. The ETFs double losses as well as gains, within South Korea’s cap of twice a stock’s daily move – a feature regulators say many latecomers may underestimate.

“Investors should be cautious of amplified market volatility during potential downturns, particularly if late comers to the market increasingly rely on leverage to chase stock surges out of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out),” the BOK said, adding that the margin loans are concentrated on chip shares.

Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol last week also flagged concerns about rising leveraged stock investments, pledging to manage risks tied to “excessive herd-like behaviour.”

The Financial Services Commission is monitoring leverage levels and regularly engaging brokerages, said an official on condition of anonymity, adding it has no immediate plans for new restrictions beyond existing training requirements.

Samsung and SK Hynix now make up more than half of the index in terms of market capitalization and intraday swings of 5% to 10% on the KOSPI have become increasingly common.

The leverage boom is part of a broader push to draw Korean investors back from U.S. markets, where many have gravitated since the pandemic.

The effort has worked – perhaps too well, and ants have been voracious on their return home. Margin-based equity investment jumped 72.5% in 2025 alone, far outpacing 36.3% growth in the United States, 36% in China and 21% in Japan, BOK data show.

Daily trading volume hit a record 106.2 trillion won in May, nearly 60% above the averages from January through April, and about four times that of 2025 average.

A survey of local brokerages showed the largest buyer age group was those in their 40s, accounting for 28.9% of the total inflow into single-stock leveraged ETFs linked to chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix between May 27 and June 1, according to Yonhap News. Those in their 50s made up 28.7%, while people in their 30s accounted for 22.2%.

“I used to trade U.S. equities, but I bought SK Hynix just before the war broke out,” said a 40-year-old housewife in Seoul, who asked not to be named.

“Everyone is talking about the leveraged ETFs. SK Hynix had run up too high to buy outright, so I bought the double-leveraged ETF instead. But the volatility is extreme, and it makes me anxious. I’ll probably sell soon.”

($1 = 1,548.5400 won)

(Reporting by Cynthia Kim and Yena Park; Editing by Brenda Goh and Shri Navaratnam)

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By Valentina Za

MILAN, June 8 (Reuters) – Italy’s top banking group Intesa Sanpaolo made a €30.6 billion ($35 billion) unsolicited cash-and-share bid on Monday to buy smaller rival Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) to create the euro zone’s second-largest lender.

A successful transaction, which would rank among the country’s biggest banking deals ever, would place Intesa behind Spain’s Santander in terms of market value, surpassing France’s BNP Paribas and domestic rival UniCredit, which is currently striving to grow its German business by buying Commerzbank.

Intesa CEO Carlo Messina said the offer, although not previously agreed, was friendly towards the MPS investors and he was confident of securing their support by the time the bid concludes in December. 

Speaking in a call, he said that he was on good terms with the two principal investors, the Delfin holding and businessman Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone, and was offering a cash component precisely to win them over.

“We will reach the minimum (targeted threshold of 66.67%),” he told an analyst call on Monday. “We have very good relations with Delfin and Caltagirone.” 

Intesa said its offer entailed a premium of 12.5% versus the closing share price of MPS on Friday, which gave MPS a market value of €27.4 billion. 

Shares in MPS jumped more than 10% on Monday while those in Intesa lost 4%. 

BPM’S PROPOSAL IS ‘A LOVE LETTER’

MPS, bailed out by the state in 2017 and reprivatised in 2023-2024, has been a focus of domestic bank mergers since becoming the main investor in insurer Generali last year, a coveted asset in Italian finance.

Intesa’s move sidelines Banco BPM, which has long been the leading candidate to merge with MPS. Amid mounting expectations of an Intesa bid, Banco BPM, Italy’s fourth-largest bank, said on Sunday it wanted to open talks with MPS about a potential merger.

Messina quipped that the BPM approach to MPS was a “love letter” as opposed to his concrete offer, adding the bid had not been prompted by BPM’s approach but rather the other way round.

Under Italian takeover rules, Intesa’s formal bid now prevents MPS from agreeing the terms of a deal with BPM without prior shareholder approval.

MPS has a scheduled board meeting later on Monday and the bank said it will not comment on Intesa or BPM until its board discusses the matter at the meeting.

UNIPOL DEAL

Intesa secured a fifth of the Italian banking market when it bought midsized UBI back in 2020, leapfrogging UniCredit to become Italy’s largest bank.

Citing antitrust limits, Intesa has kept out of a wave of mergers and acquisitions in Italy’s banking sector that began in November 2024, with Messina previously describing it as “the Wild West.”

To address competition issues, Intesa said on Monday it had struck a deal with insurer Unipol to sell a banking business comprising 635 MPS branches – roughly half the total – and MPS’ central offices in Siena, if its bid is successful.

Unipol is the main investor in smaller bank BPER Banca and an Intesa ally. It had played a similar role in the UBI deal, buying branches to help Intesa gain antitrust approval while supporting BPER’s expansion. 

Unipol said it would pay up to €3.5 billion for the deal and combine it with BPER to create a bank that would operate under the name Banca Monte dei Paschi.

GENERALI STAKES

Intesa said the combined entity would have a market capitalisation of €126 billion and a net income goal of €16 billion in 2029, up from last year’s combined profits of €13.6 billion. 

Messina said Intesa wanted to keep the 13% Generali stake which MPS gained when it acquired Mediobanca last year, but ruled out a takeover of the insurer.

Intesa had attempted to buy Generali in 2017, but dropped the plan and grew its insurance business internally.

Messina said a 3% Generali stake Intesa unveiled on Monday was necessary to defuse any defensive move from the insurer, which in 2017 took a stake in Intesa to thwart its approach thanks to Italian rules on cross-shareholdings.

Intesa said it would also retain Mediobanca, strengthening its wealth management and corporate investment banking activities.

Intesa’s move deals a potential blow to UniCredit, which last year built a large stake in Generali with CEO Andrea Orcel saying the bank “would observe” the situation.

($1 = 0.8667 euros)

(Reporting by Valentina Za in Milan and Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Tom Hogue, Jamie Freed, Susan Fenton and Keith Weir)

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By Douglas Gillison

WASHINGTON, June 8 (Reuters) – Prediction market watchdogs may struggle to police betting on the U.S. midterm elections, with thousands of races offering ever more ways for insiders to make a quick buck on a rising number of platforms, according to experts and new data. 

A surge in suspicious trades on Kalshi and Polymarket, the two largest players, has stoked fears that these fast-growing markets are creating new avenues for insider trading. 

Kalshi in April suspended three congressional candidates for betting on their own races, and regulators are investigating whether former congressman George Santos engaged in potential insider trading on the platform. 

That may prove to be the tip of the iceberg, said insider trading experts. With at least 6,590 state and federal legislative seats up for election this year, an expected betting bonanza will test safeguards in a novel marketplace where insider trading remains a legally murky concept and its regulator is stretched, the people said.

“We may see a slow response or we may see no response if and when insider trading happens in the midterms,” said Ilya Beylin, a professor at Seton Hall Law School who has studied prediction market oversight. Suspicious trades would undermine Americans’ faith in democracy at a time when polls show many already worry the system is in danger, he added.

Kalshi, Polymarket and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the commodity derivatives regulator which is pushing for jurisdiction over prediction markets, say they are equipped for the challenge with various monitoring tools and other resources.

The platforms are also bolstering controls, with Kalshi blocking election trades by politicians and campaign workers and Polymarket cracking down on trading on private information. In April, the U.S. Senate banned members and staff from prediction market betting.

Combined monthly global trading volumes on Kalshi and Polymarket surged nearly fivefold from September to reach about $24 billion in April, compared to roughly $14 billion a month wagered through legal sportsbooks in the United States last year on average, according to Pew Research Center.

“As innovation expands the reach and complexity of our markets, we are continuing to grow alongside it, both operationally and technologically,” a CFTC spokesperson said, adding the agency will “enforce the law aggressively.”

A lawyer for Santos declined to comment.

GROWING INFORMATION ASYMMETRY

Prediction markets allow traders to buy and sell binary “yes” ​or “no” contracts on the outcome of an array of events. 

Traders can bet, for example, on which party will control Congress or a state legislature, as well as on individual races, and events around those contests and their candidates.

In addition to roughly 470 congressional races, 6,122 state and territorial legislative seats are up for election this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, on top of local races for district attorney, mayor, the judiciary and other offices. Each candidate generates insiders – campaign workers, pollsters, fundraisers, donors, friends and family.

While insider trading is banned in commodity derivatives markets, there have been relatively few cases, said legal experts. And when it comes to elections, there is a smorgasbord of potentially relevant nonpublic information, from unpublished polling data to a brewing scandal, some of which may not be well-understood by regulators, said Beylin.

“They will need to learn, and that learning process often involves trial and error,” he added. 

That pool of potential inside information is expanding as election bets become more esoteric. During 2024, a major election year, Polymarket listed 1,293 related markets, with $7.26 billion in trading volume, according to the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, a nonprofit research group. 

With few major contests last year, the number of U.S. election markets on Polymarket fell, but the ratio of markets to races rose seven-fold to 17.4, indicating election markets are becoming more granular, according to Michelle Kendler-Kretsch, an ACDC researcher.

Increasingly, they focus less on the winners and losers, and more on the variables of a race, such as voter turnout, margin of victory and when candidates may drop out, according to ACDC’s analysis, which has not previously been reported.

Last year, for example, Polymarket listed multiple markets on the share of “inactive” ballots, or those ranking candidates who have since been eliminated, in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor.

That trend “creates a more significant information asymmetry, while the number of potential insiders grows and the risk of insider trading increases,” said Kendler-Kretsch. 

BOLSTERING CONTROLS

Besides Kalshi and Polymarket, there are at least four other U.S.-authorized platforms offering election contracts, a handful of brokers providing access to the products, and several other players hoping to launch. As with traditional markets, the companies are the first line of defense.

Polymarket recently launched a U.S. operation, but its main exchange is not U.S.-regulated and has not generally mandated “Know Your Customer (KYC)” identity checks. While it bars U.S. residents, authorities have flagged concerns that those controls can be easily bypassed. 

“We maintain a comprehensive market integrity framework” and the company is focused on transparency, a spokesperson said.

Thanks to internal surveillance, Polymarket has referred nearly 100 user wallets to law enforcement, including one allegedly used by a U.S. soldier to place an inside bet on the removal of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, the spokesperson said.

Kalshi defines an insider as anyone in a position to directly influence a contract’s outcome, said Robert DeNault, the company’s head of enforcement. Aside from KYC checks, Kalshi uses public records to identify federal politicians and campaign staffers before they trade, and plans to do the same for local elections where data is available. It also monitors trades for anomalies. 

It can then home in on a subset of suspicious activity, said DeNault. “You can leverage the tools … to gather a lot of information,” he said. Although the workload can be large, it is manageable, he added.

As powerful as such tools are, each lead has to be investigated by humans, said Aitan Goelman, who was CFTC enforcement director from 2014 to 2017. The cases Kalshi flagged in April, for example, showed humans had to conclusively identify the users.

With CFTC enforcement staffing at 105 positions, which budget data shows is its lowest level for at least 20 years, and many experienced investigators having left, the agency may not have the manpower to probe a lot of referrals, said Goelman.

The agency spokesperson said it was relying on experienced personnel and had been hiring continuously since December.

Goelman, though, argued its resources were “not even close” to meeting the agency’s needs.

(Reporting by Douglas Gillison in Washington; editing by Michelle Price and Nick Zieminski)

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By Rajesh Kumar Singh and Joe Brock

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 7 (Reuters) – United Airlines remains open to buying airport slots, gates or other assets if higher fuel prices put weaker rivals under pressure, but it is unlikely to pursue a major consolidation deal after its failed overture to American Airlines, Chief Executive Scott Kirby told Reuters on Sunday.

Kirby said in April that American declined to engage after he approached it about a merger, an idea Reuters reported he raised with U.S. President Donald Trump in February. American CEO Robert Isom rejected a tie-up as anti-competitive and bad for customers.

“I think consolidation is unlikely for United,” Kirby said in an interview on the sidelines of the International Air Transport Association’s annual meeting in Rio de Janeiro. “That doesn’t mean we won’t still be in the market to buy assets, but consolidation is a low probability.”      

MERGER NEEDED MANAGEMENT SUPPORT 

Kirby defended the rationale for a deal with American, saying he believed it would have benefited consumers. But he said a transaction that large and unconventional could not be completed without support from American’s management.

The United chief said he believed labor groups, shareholders and customers would have supported the deal. But American management’s public opposition made the transaction impractical, he said. “You can’t have the management team on record publicly saying it was anti-competitive,” Kirby said.

Asked whether United had given up on American or could return to the idea later, Kirby repeatedly said any deal would require “a willing partner.”

He also denied that United had discussed with the Trump administration giving the U.S. government a golden share as part of any merger proposal.

Higher fuel prices are testing airline margins and widening the divide between larger carriers with stronger brands and weaker rivals with less pricing power. 

Kirby said United expects that higher fares will put it on track to recover later this year the full hit it has taken from surging fuel prices, underscoring the carrier’s confidence in demand despite rising ticket prices. He said demand has stayed strong, though United expects higher fares eventually to have some impact.

BRAND-LOYAL AIRLINES PULL AHEAD

Several airline executives have said the fuel shock is separating stronger carriers from weaker ones. Kirby framed the divide as one between airlines with customer loyalty and those still competing largely on price.

He rejected criticism by Willie Walsh, head of the International Air Transport Association, that large U.S. carriers are squeezing out competition. Kirby said United and Delta Air Lines are winning because they have invested in brands and products that travelers value. 

“Customers care about the technology, the service, the reliability, the product,” Kirby said. “They want a great experience. They don’t just want a seat.”  Kirby said United’s advantage is less about its balance sheet than its operating profit, which allows the airline to keep investing while some similarly sized rivals are just breaking even.  

Asked whether JetBlue Airways would become more attractive to United if it entered Chapter 11, a financial restructuring process, Kirby said he thought that scenario was unlikely, citing JetBlue’s cash and unencumbered assets.

He also dismissed fuel hedging as a structural answer to the industry’s exposure to volatile fuel costs, saying it is “ineffective if you lose money over time.”

While he acknowledged Delta’s refinery is helping it in the current environment, Kirby said United is not interested in following its U.S. rival by buying a refinery.

(Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh and Joe Brock; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

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By Gabriel Araujo, Luciana Magalhaes, Rajesh Kumar Singh and Allison Lampert

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 7 (Reuters) – The global airline industry nearly halved its 2026 profit forecast on Sunday, citing conflict in the Middle East that has driven up fuel costs, disrupted key air corridors and exposed the fragility of a sector operating on thin margins.

The International Air Transport Association, which represents more than 370 airlines accounting for about 85% of global air traffic, said in its annual report that it now expects the industry to post a combined net profit of $23 billion in 2026, well below a previous projection of about $41 billion and down from $45 billion in 2025.

The downgrade underscores airlines’ exposure to geopolitical shocks and fuel volatility, even as passenger demand remains resilient, planes are flying fuller and revenues are set to rise to more than $1.1 trillion.

“There are two major factors: one is the significant increase in jet fuel prices, which has gone way higher than I think anybody would have expected, and then the disruption to the airlines in the Gulf region, so that combination has led us to reduce the forecast,” IATA Director General Willie Walsh told Reuters at the group’s annual meeting in Rio de Janeiro.

Walsh said he expects some smaller airlines to go bankrupt or be taken over by bigger carriers this year and next as higher fuel costs bite. U.S. low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines shut down last month, the first airline casualty of the Iran war.

Airlines are also expected to cut unprofitable routes to protect margins, while fares – which have surged since the start of the Iran war – are unlikely to fall soon, Walsh said.

“In an environment where demand remains pretty robust, but capacity comes down, that will likely lead to a situation where fares will remain elevated,” Walsh said.

FUEL COST SHOCK WIPES OUT HIGHER REVENUES

The Middle East conflict, triggered by U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran, has forced airlines to reroute flights around closed or restricted airspace, adding hours to some journeys, increasing fuel burn and straining already tight capacity.

At the same time, oil prices have surged on fears of supply disruption, pushing jet fuel prices sharply higher and widening refinery margins, leaving airlines facing a steep jump in their largest cost.

Gulf airlines such as Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways face the greatest operational uncertainty after a near-complete shutdown of regional airspace at the start of the conflict.

Walsh said most regions should remain profitable, though at lower levels, while Middle East airlines are likely to slip into the red due to the conflict and weaker demand.

IATA expects airlines’ fuel bill to surge to about $350 billion this year from roughly $252 billion in 2025, with fuel accounting for nearly a third of operating costs.

That is eroding profitability per passenger, with airlines now expected to earn about $4.50 per passenger, roughly half last year’s level.

On the upside, IATA expects industry revenues to rise 9.4% to around $1.16 trillion this year, driven by steady travel demand, higher fares, and growing income from extras such as seat upgrades and onboard services.

Aircraft shortages are also squeezing the sector. Delivery delays at Boeing and Airbus are forcing airlines to keep older, less fuel-efficient planes in service for longer, raising maintenance bills and blunting efforts to improve margins, Walsh said.

(Reporting by Gabriel Araujo, Luciana Magalhaes, Rajesh Kumar Singh and Allison Lampert. Writing by Joe Brock. Editing by Mark Potter)

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By Gabriel Araujo

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 7 (Reuters) – Brazilian planemaker Embraer expects to eventually bring its E2 jets into China, seeing a role for the aircraft among the country’s domestically developed models, a senior executive told Reuters on Sunday.

“We have a dedicated team in Beijing, they’re day-to-day working in China,” Embraer Commercial Aviation CEO Arjan Meijer said on the sidelines of a global gathering of top airline executives in Rio de Janeiro.

“We believe the E2 family is the ideal complement to the indigenous products of China,” he added.

Meijer said the E190-E2 and E195-E2 jets would fit between China’s smaller C909 and the larger C919, offering airlines flexibility to connect cities across the country.

Embraer is in discussions with potential customers, the executive said, noting the E2 family has been certified by local authorities.

The Brazilian company has struggled to find new business in China since the 2016 closure of an executive jet joint venture in Harbin.

In 2023, it announced a deal to convert passenger jets into freighters in Lanzhou, disappointing some in the industry who had hoped for a deal for sales to an airline.

“China has its own challenges. So we’re in discussions. We do believe we will find a moment to bring the E2 into China, but we’ll have to give that some time. We’re not there yet,” Meijer said.

Separately, Meijer said Embraer was not yet ready to develop a larger aircraft despite growing customer interest.

The firm remains focused on its core segment of jets seating up to around 150 passengers, he said, where it competes with Airbus’ A220 family, but standing below Airbus’ and Boeing’s best-selling A320 and 737 families.

“Our customers are asking for a bigger aircraft, it’s no secret. But that’s such a big decision for a company like Embraer. We’re not there. We are currently very satisfied with the segment up to 150 seats,” Meijer said.

(Reporting by Gabriel Araujo in Rio de Janeiro, editing by Manuela Andreoni)

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By Allison Lampert

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 7 (Reuters) – Italy’s ITA Airways will decide within the next eight weeks whether to sue aerospace supplier RTX’s Pratt & Whitney due to engine problems that have grounded almost 20% of its fleet of 80 aircraft, the carrier’s CEO said on Sunday.

Hundreds of A320neo planes, the latest version of the Airbus single-aisle jets, have been grounded globally.

This has been partly due to long waiting times for engine inspections and repairs, and after a manufacturing problem at Pratt & Whitney put pressure on the output of the fuel-efficient GTF engines in Airbus planes.

“It’s imminent,” Joerg Eberhart, CEO of ITA Airways, said on the sidelines of a global gathering of top airline executives in Rio de Janeiro. “We will have to decide within the next six to eight weeks.”

RTX did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The U.S.-based industrial giant has previously said Pratt is taking various steps to improve repairs after disclosing in 2023 a new GTF problem involving contaminated powder metal.

“So far, we are quantifying the damage we are facing, which is about 150 million euros,” Eberhart said. “We are in talks with Pratt, and what they proposed so far is not sufficient to cover our damage.”

(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Rio de Janeiro, editing by Manuela Andreoni and Chris Reese)

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By Danielle Kaye

NEW YORK, June 7 (Reuters) – Italian fashion house Prada <1913.F> unveiled on Sunday the inner-layer garment set to be worn by NASA astronauts heading into space, underscoring the brand’s push to be the first major luxury player to make inroads in the space industry.

The body-hugging suit, created in collaboration with Houston-based space infrastructure developer Axiom Space, features ventilation tubes knitted into the garment.

“We have really a broad spectrum of capability and know-how,” Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada’s chief marketing officer, said at an event at Prada’s Manhattan store, sitting beside a mannequin donning the new Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment.

Expertise for developing space exploration products “can come from lots of seemingly unrelated industries,” said Jonathan Cirtain, CEO of Axiom Space.

The new product follows Prada’s splashy foray into space fashion in 2024 with the unveiling of a spacesuit that is expected to be used for NASA’s Artemis 3 Earth orbit, set to launch in 2027, and the anticipated Artemis 4 moon landing in 2028.

Luxury brands have long drawn inspiration from space travel. But Prada has gone “beyond inspiration into an actual partnership” as the space exploration and tourism industries develop, said Thomai Serdari, a luxury brand strategist and marketing professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Serdari pointed to two factors motivating Prada’s interest in the space industry: to gain access to affluent consumers who are contemplating space travel, and to align the brand with avant-garde thought. Companies from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to Elon Musk’s SpaceX have leaned into space tourism for the wealthy.

The resumption of space exploration and human travel to the moon is “bound to attract a lot of eyeballs,” said Luca Solca, global head of luxury goods at Bernstein. Luxury brands need to stay relevant and visible, he said.

Prada’s push comes against a backdrop of a struggling luxury goods sector. After two years of contraction, the industry was showing signs of stabilization until the Iran war began at the end of February, disrupting travel and denting luxury spending far beyond the Middle East.

WILL LUXURY PEERS FOLLOW?

Other fashion and apparel companies have jumped on the space bandwagon. Under Armour has partnered with spaceflight company Virgin Galactic to create space apparel, while Columbia Sportswear has worked with space exploration company Intuitive Machines on space fabric technology.

But it remains unclear whether other luxury players might follow Prada’s lead.

“In luxury, it is important to be the first to do something, to be a trend-setter,” Serdari said, noting that LVMH’s <LVMH.PA> Louis Vuitton, Hermès <HRMS.PA> and Chanel are all interested in space travel but that they would likely find new ways to make inroads.

“You will never see the upper crust of the luxury sector copying each other,” she added.

(Reporting by Danielle Kaye, Editing by Lisa Jucca)

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By Allison Lampert

SAO PAULO, June 6 (Reuters) – Boeing’s top services executive said on Saturday that the planemaker can provide aftermarket parts support to China to back a 200-plane order announced by the planemaker following a visit by U.S President Donald Trump to Beijing earlier this year.

– Chris Raymond, Chief Executive of Boeing Global Services, told Reuters that there would be no problem for China to access parts to support the deal “if it’s a part that we’re allowed to sell globally,” adding that the planemaker has a parts warehouse in the country.

– China’s deal to buy 200 jets would be firmed up later this year and is only an “initial tranche” of a potentially far bigger deal, the planemaker’s CEO Kelly Ortberg has said.

– The Chinese commerce ministry has said that the U.S would need to provide the country with supply guarantees for aircraft engine parts and components under the Boeing deal.

– Raymond said flight hours in most regions are still showing modest to good growth in terms of flight hours, and that there is demand for plane modifications despite the war in Iran. 

-Raymond added that engine components that Boeing distributes, as well as parts like flight deck windows, remain challenging due to supply chain shortages. 

– His division is looking to trim costs through efficiency gains due to the use of analytics, not layoffs, the executive added.

(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Rio de Janeiro)

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