California lawmakers are keeping up pressure on FAA to impose mandatory operating restrictions for helicopters over Los Angeles, but the agency believes the regulatory process “is not well suited” to solving regional noise issues and is pushing for a series of collaborative voluntary measures.

Used market trends, slowing flight operations and plummeting aircraft values are pointing to continued market woes as the summer approaches, industry data shows.

FAA took a concrete step toward replacing leaded aviation gasoline, asking fuel producers to submit proposals by July 1, 2014 for possible options to transition to an unleaded fuel. The agency released a request for proposals June 10 for data packages for potential replacement fuels that could be developed by 2018.

Bombardier always faced a challenge convincing skeptics it could enter the narrowbody-airliner sector successfully with the CSeries. Damage wrought to the commercial aircraft industry's reputation by Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 issues has not helped.

Following the design freeze for the first version of the MS-21 narrowbody, Russia's United Aircraft Corporation is inching toward starting production of the initial test aircraft. UAC is has opted to work on the biggest variant first. According to UAC subsidiary Irkut Corp., which leads the MS-21 development, configuration of the first variant—the 212-seat MS-21-300—has been frozen and the design for the fuselage has been sent to UAC production sites in Irkutsk and Ulyanovsk.

There's no big surprise in the 2013 edition of Boeing's Current Market Outlook, its 20-year forecast. Aggregate numbers for the total value the market will reach in 2032 and the orders expected by then—$4.8 trillion, and 35,000, respectively—have inched up a bit from the 2012 forecast, by $300 billion and 1,000 aircraft.

Boeing's 737 MAX development team expects to achieve a firm configuration of the more fuel-efficient single-aisle transport in July. The company is so confident about production that it is hinting the airplane's service entry may inch forward from the current plans of fourth-quarter 2017.

The Airbus A380, which began revenue services more than five years ago, has had its fair share of praise and problems. But a perceptible drop in sales over the past three years has the manufacturer hoping that the program is simply ahead of its time, and that the shift away from the very large long-haul aircraft is not structural.