British Airways will reap savings of only $32 million or so from last week's pact with ground services personnel--their wages will be frozen for two years--but the labor agreement sends a strong message to the financial community: The U.K. carrier fully intends to meet its goal of reducing operating expenses by $1.6 billion by 2000 and remain one of the world's most competitive airlines.

Proliferating inventory-management programs at AAR Corp.--an opportunistic response to the aviation industry's desire to save costs through outsourcing--are fueling strong revenue and earnings growth.

Thiokol Corp. earnings from commercial businesses are expected to increase substantially in the next few years, reaching 65% or more, up from 43% currently.

The recent surge in the value of U.S. airline equities notwithstanding, the stock-price performances of both the aerospac e/defense group and carriers are lagging well behind the increase in the Standard&Poor's 500 Industrials Index thus far in 1997.

An addition to ARNAV Systems' line of avionics is the new MFD 5200 moving-map display. A 2.5-pound, remote- mount symbol generator and a 2.7-pound color LCD are the two components that make up the system. The five-inch unit displays NEXRAD and METAR weather reports. The STCed system is now operating in Cessna Citations, Raytheon aircraft and Sikor-sky and Bell helicopters. Price: $6,995. ARNAV.

It's not often that a growing, highly profitable company is punished by the market as severely as Atlas Air Inc. was last week., but the Golden, Colo.-based cargo carrier was mauled mercilessly.

THE EUROPEAN CIVIL AVIATION Conference's (ECAC) 35 member states have agreed to implement ``a new institutional strategy'' to enhance air traffic management (ATM).

Strong commercial aircraft sales are expected to propel revenues and earnings upward at Coltec Industries Inc. in the next 24 months.