Chances are pretty good that the pilots who will fly the cockpits of tomorrow are today sitting in front of a computer, playing very life-like 3-D video games. Studying how those young minds learn will be crucial to developing not only the cockpit and interfaces, but also the training regime.

American Airlines may have unwittingly found a new use for the 8,500 iPads that its pilots now carry to hold aircraft documents and charts: electronic flight plans. It turns out the computer “glitch” the company experienced on April 16 had nothing to do with the Sabre reservation system, as first reported, and everything to do with flight plans. The glitch caused a shutdown of the carrier's U.S. network for several hours, resulting in the cancellation of hundreds of flights and lingering disruptions through the next day.

What do you think? Where can we do better?

A line from The Beatles' rock anthem “Back in the U.S.S.R.” nicely sums up a recent morning for Capt. Roger Moore as he piloted an “airliner” from New York to San Francisco: “On the way, the paper bag was on my knee. Man, I had a dreadful flight . . . .” Moore had just endured 5 hr. of constant turbulence, but along with getting paid, he did it for a good cause: making sure certain next-generation avionics are a good fit for the flight deck.

Indonesia's Lion Air will continue to grow its fleet, despite the April 13 incident at Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport in which the airline's Boeing 737-800, local registration PK-LKS, landed in the sea—short of Runway 09—and broke in two. All 108 people onboard survived, but 46 were hospitalized. Lion President Rusdi Kirana said none of the injuries were critical.

Infrastructure bottlenecks have to be cleared to ensure growth

Eurocopter hopes for return to service with gearbox surveillance

Australia-based low-cost carrier Jetstar Airways is often in the headlines due to its rapid expansion into Asia. But as with other successful airline models, its forays into new overseas markets are built on strong performance in its own backyard.