United Airlines' fierce opposition to a Southwest Airlines proposal to start “near-international” service from Houston's Hobby Airport might suggest a larger issue: the potential for a glut of services from the U.S. to the Caribbean and Latin America that could force some players to pull out or reduce their services in the lucrative markets.

Boeing and its vast international supply chain are within weeks of delivering 787s that require none of the long retrofit sessions that have added billions of dollars in costs to the program since the company hosted a splashy launch party in 2007 for a jet that turned out to be unflyable.

Across composite and metallic aircraft structures, technology is being developed and deployed to minimize component lead times, reduce manufacturing costs and increase production rates. Automated processes that can take component geometry data directly from three-dimensional design databases are high on the most-desired list for aerospace manufacturers.

Mitsubishi's documentation for the manufacturing processes and engineering analysis is not in order fo the MRJ.

Cutting and drilling of cured composite components during manufacture or repair are a growing challenge as structures become bigger, more complex and costly.

The mounting tempo of new commercial airliner development programs has heaped unprecedented pressure on engine makers to bolster test capabilities and, in particular, to modernize their flying testbeds.

Earlier this year, in advance of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping's visit to Los Angeles, U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson convened a luncheon meeting of 20 or so Southern California business leaders. He touted U.S. exports to China, which last year exceeded $100 billion for the first time. I pointed out to him that spending by Chinese visitors, which is counted as a U.S. export, was $5 billion in 2010. In other words, tourist dollars alone account for 5% of U.S. exports to China.

Automotive-style robots are moving onto the aircraft assembly line to save time and cost. Bombardier plans to use six single-arm robots to join the cockpit and fuselage sections of its CSeries airliner, saving more than 40 hr. Each 12-ton robot will be able to drill a hole and insert a fastener in 32 sec. for aluminum-lithium structures and 53 sec. for composites.