An Embraer ERJ-145 can be had for as little as $2 million.

In Washington nobody likes to talk about the “s-word” but as March 1, the deadline for the across-the-board budget cuts grows closer, conversations about sequestration are becoming all-consuming. “It is just occupying everyone's time,” says Pentagon industrial base chief Brett Lambert. Unless lawmakers pass a new agreement by the end of the month, $85 billion in across-the-board budget reductions will take place for fiscal 2013. It is the first increment in a 10-year, nearly $1 trillion package of spending cuts.

Despite the financial and legal issues that have recently afflicted its parent, Finmeccanica, AgustaWestland is pushing ahead with development and flight-testing of three new rotary-wing aircraft at the same time.

As brand-new 787s continue to stack up at its Everett, Wash., facility and others remain idle around the world, Boeing's battery crisis is finally coming to a head as the FAA decides on whether to approve a company plan to return the airliner to the skies.

While industry accepts that the light single-engine helicopter is very much in demand, it is often difficult for manufacturers to justify investment in such machines when medium and heavy helicopters yield greater profit margins. For companies like Eurocopter, which last year sold more than 200 examples of its Ecureuil family, the decision to spend money creating a new light helicopter is a tricky one, especially with no sign of demand for the existing aircraft abating soon.

Eurocopter has been building a relationship in Mexico for 30 years. So in 2010, when the government here asked for an offset agreement as a condition for selling 15 EC725 long-range tactical transports to the Mexican air force and navy, the company readily agreed. “At Eurocopter, proximity [to our markets] is a key word, part of our DNA,” President/CEO Lutz Bertling said at the opening of a $100 million factory here last month that is the offset payoff for that contract.

The merger of AMR Corp.'s American Airlines with US Airways is poised to create the world's largest airline. On the domestic front, however, the pairing of two of the remaining four legacy carriers marks something else: the continued consolidation of the U.S. airline industry. With just Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and a new American Airlines left—should the latest legacy merger receive regulatory approval—consolidation could be nearing the end of its 35-year run since deregulation in 1978.

Initial components of Russia's new MS-21 narrowbody airliner are starting to be assembled. Ulyanovsk-based Aviastar-SP, a United Aircraft Corp. (UAC) subsidiary, completed the first rear-fuselage section of the MS-21. This section will be used for fatigue testing in Riga, Latvia, according to Irkut Corp., which is developing the aircraft.