Newsletter for June 26th, 2026

IF48, the 60°N & S announcement, Asiana and Korean Air merger, a statement from the CEO of the future VA Kangaroo Atlantic Airways and many more !

By I.N.S journalist team

IF48 Edition 9 is taking place this week-end

Dan

“Expect busy airspaces and a weekend packed with traffic across some of the region’s busiest gateways.” This is how Dan teased us about the next IF48 series event, set to take place in South Asia - including India and the tropical islands of the Maldives. As the IF staff team launches the 9th edition of this series, we thought it would be a good idea to give you some additional information !

First and foremost, IF48 is a series of events taking place the last week-end of each month, and featuring airports to bring traffic to life. During these two days, the IF servers usually experience a growth in number of pilots connected, and the featured region turns airports commonly forgotten by users into major hubs. IFATC ensures full coverage of the region, and we often see higher traffic rates than in the real world !

The first edition took place across the Atlantic, featuring major hubs such as EGLL, LFPG and KJFK, but following ones have focused on less known airports. An edition even gave general aviation a focus, which was unexpected but particularly welcomed by the community.

Back to the 9th edition, named “Southern Connexions”. Featured airports are Male (VRMM), Mumbai (VALL), Bengaluru (VOBL) and Chennai (VOMM). All officials group flight details are included in the pinned IFC post. At the moment your fellow journalist is writing these lines, the next edition poll winner seems to be Africa, though it will be a tight race with South America. You can be assured we will give you more details about this !

Asiana Airlines’s Star Alliance Exit

Asiana Airlines

In a deal finalized in December 2024 worth 1.3 billion, Korean Air purchased Asiana Airlines. A Seoul based operator with a decent fleet and reputation, the deal had originally been struck in the depth of the pandemic in 2020. Asiana Air is set to officially merge into Korean Air on Dec 16 2026, this will likely prove extremely beneficial to Korean Air. Let me know your thoughts on this merger.

Kangaroo Atlantic Airways CEO Airbusflyer32 releases a statement exclusively for the I.N.S readers

KAA VA Logo - Airbusflyer32

"Kangaroo Atlantic Airways is continuing to develop a website and so much more in the background but is struggling with some hurdles at this time but we hope to be solving these issues soon and have Kangaroo Atlantic Open to the Public soon but it is not guaranteed but we hope to see some people wanting to join and while it will take time we will open Pilot Applications in February 2027 If we get approved in that time frame and we are proud of our team and we are still looking for more executives as we still have executive roles open”

- Airbusflyer32 about KAA

An American Airlines flight is derrouted after a passenger tries to bite another

American Airlines flight 3046 turned into chaos as a passenger allegedly bit a fellow passenger. On June 22nd an American Airlines A320-200 operating flight 3046 departed Charlotte, as flight 3046 was approaching Philadelphia, a passenger had a medical emergency which resulted in them becoming violent. The pilots of flight 3046 said in ATC communication that: “He just bit a passenger, and he’s trying to fight everybody,". The pilots then proceeded to request EMTs alongside police officers upon the plane’s arrival, the pilots added "I don’t know… if he’s hallucinating” whilst requesting for the EMTs. After the flight had arrived at Philadelphia EMTs confirmed the fact that the passenger had a medical emergency.

60° N & S announcement

Yesterday evening, an announcement was made on IF discord and social media. The picture in this WIP showed a part of the terrain north of 60°N, with mountainous scenery : According to Jason, our dear developer Cameron succeeded in fixing a long awaited feature : the famous “60°N and 60°S wall”, as well as the flat topography above and below those lines. Back in 2019, a blog post explained that Infinite Flight is using the SRTM database - powered by NASA - to create imagery, and that this particular database did not have any terrain data above 60°N and below 60°S. But this has finally come to an end ! In a future update, this will be solved, and flying past the poles will not only have meaning but will be beautiful ! Let me know your thoughts on this, what will be your first flight in the area ?

TAAG Angola Airlines starts flight to Guangzhou

Angola NewsWire

The only direct passenger air route between China and Angola officially launches

Early morning on June 24, Angola Airlines Flight DT692 operated by a Boeing 787-9 landed smoothly at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, marking the official opening of the Luanda ↔ Guangzhou direct service. This is currently the sole non-stop passenger route connecting the two countries.

Initially, the service runs once weekly: Flight DT692 departs Luanda at 18:50 every Tuesday and arrives in Guangzhou at 07:50 the next day; the return flight DT693 takes off from Guangzhou at 00:15 every Friday and lands in Luanda at 13:15. The airline plans to increase frequencies to three weekly flights later and deploy Boeing 777 wide-body jets to add capacity. This route connects the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area with Southern Africa by air.

The A380 gets an airworthiness directive.

On June 22 the European Union Aviation Safety Agency issued an airworthiness directive for the A380. “It has been determined that the cracks found on certain aeroplanes could reduce the structural integrity of the wing” said the agency in the airworthiness directive that was on the 22th of June. The A380 has faced such problems before, the A380 had been grounded for several weeks in 2012. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has said that 16 aircraft need additional checks, 15 are owned and operated by Emirates and 1 is operated and owned by Qantas.

Steam machine

The excitement for the Steam Machine was high when it was first announced on November 12th 2025. But, as it turns out it may have already disappointed many people. The Steam Machine is a console made by the very loved and respected company known as Valve. The Steam Machine is a small form factor PC which runs Steamos out of the box, it is powered by a Semi-custom AMD Zen 4 6C / 12T which has clock speed of upto 4.8 GHz and TDP of 30W. It has 16gb ddr5 ram and 8gb GDDR6 VRAM, and has two storage options being 512GB and 2TB both models include a high-speed Micro-SD card slot. And the GPU is a Semi-Custom AMD RDNA3 28CUs that has a TDP of 110W and a sustained max clock speed of 2.45GHz. Now it has an eye-watering price, the 512GB model is priced at 1049$ and the 2TB model is priced at 1349$ but these prices do not include the controller by default. For that you’ll have to buy the bundle that includes the Steam controller which are priced at 1128$ for the 512GB model and 1428$. And for that price you can easily buy a decent PC, so it just doesn’t make sense. What are your thoughts?

Sources

“IF48 Edition 9 - Southern Invasion” pinned post by Dan on Infinite Flight Community website
Travel weekly Media - “Asiana to exit Star Alliance ahead of Korean Air merger”, Jun 23, 2026
Kangaroo Atlantic Airways CEO - Airbusflyer32 - releases a statement exclusively for our readers
YahooNews - “He tries to fight with everyone : An American Airlines pilot warns the police after a passenger tried to bite another mid flight”, Jun 22, 2026
Jason shared WIP on discord and social media
Angola Newswire - “TAAG Angola Airlines Introduces New Route to Guangzhou, China”
The Edge media - “Airbus A380 aircraft require checks for possible wing cracks”, Jun 24, 2026

Staff

Magicalchesecat, Arendiuz, Noah6132 and Miss.Linyutong

Thank you for reading.

Sincerely,
The journalist team