When Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Washington last year, he unveiled with great fanfare $19 billion worth of purchases for Boeing 737 and 777 jets. There was only one catch: The aircraft had actually been ordered between 2007 and 2009. The central government in Beijing has long used its requisite sign-off on orders by Chinese airlines as a tool to further its political agenda, doling out—or withholding—big-ticket purchases at opportune moments.

In a speech to the Wings Club in New York last month, Bombardier President/CEO Pierre Beaudoin defended the Canadian aircraft manufacturer's new CSeries against “naysayers,” including the ones who have raised questions about the supposed “slow” order uptake for the 100-145-seat aircraft.

Aircraft manufacturers are adamant that airlines will continue to be able to raise the needed funds to finance aircraft on order, but a more pertinent question for the airlines is “at what price?”

Final site clearing is under way for construction of a 180,000-sq.-ft. delivery center for Boeing's widebody aircraft factory in Everett, Wash. Expected to open early next year, the new Everett Delivery Center north of Seattle is replacing a 60,000-sq.-ft. facility that dates to the late 1960s when Boeing was developing its first widebody jets, the 747-100/-200s. The new center will be built on the same site south of the widebody factory.

This year is supposed to be pivotal for Europe's ambitious effort to redraw its convoluted airspace. But even if states meet deadlines to form new cross-border airspace blocks, airlines are skeptical that this will bring the project's promised efficiency gains any closer to reality.

A table listing stored passenger aircraft in the March 5 edition (p. 24) contained an error regarding Boeing 747-400s. Last week, Aviation Week Intelligence Network data showed 58 of the 747 variant were parked. An industry source indicated several of those would return to revenue service soon.

Low-cost carriers such as Ryanair are capturing more market share in Italy, which has prompted Alitalia to fight back by seeking to acquire Blue Panorama and Wind Jet. Blue Panorama, owned by Franco Pecci, operates both charter and leisure flights, as well as scheduled traffic through its low-cost arm, Blu-Express. It has a fleet of 12 mostly leased Boeing aircraft, half of them widebodies, and operates from bases at Rome's Fiumicino Airport and Milan's Malpensa Airport. In 2011, it carried around 2 million passengers.

A junior German politician is trying hard to undermine EADS's newly restored peaceful governance. Peter Hintze, aviation coordinator of Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, claims that Germany's interests in the aerospace and defense group are not being preserved. This surprising assertion comes in the aftermath of Thomas Enders's proposal to consolidate in Toulouse the group's double headquarters, which are now in Paris and Ottobrunn, Germany. Enders, who is currently Airbus chief, will become EADS's leader in May when Louis Gallois retires.