When Ed Winter decided to accept an offer to become CEO of Fastjet, a new highly ambitious low-cost carrier (LCC) for Africa, the challenges seemed clear: infrastructure constraints, taxation and other regulatory issues, low Internet penetration. It was not exactly going to be easy.

Rolls readies building higher-thrust XWBs, introduction on A350-900

U.S. airlines are more stable, but has consolidation helped?

Airlines slowly begin to plan for a summer without Boeing 787s

Increasing frustration at the lack of progress in reorganizing European airspace has led airlines to call for the effort to be refocused on more ambitious changes.

The European Commission (EC) has indicated it will object to Ryanair's third attempt to take over rival Aer Lingus, despite the need for airline consolidation in Europe. Ryanair has offered a package to address competition concerns, but Europe's regulators doubt that would effectively mitigate the merged company's dominance on many routes serving Ireland.

Boeing and CFM International are scrutinizing fuel supplies and the Honeywell-built fuel-control system in the CFM56-7B following a series of thrust-instability events on Boeing 737NG aircraft.

Is the merger of American Airlines and US Airways a good idea? It would certainly seem so if you listen to the upbeat reaction from the financial community, labor unions representing the two airlines' employees and assorted pundits (see p. 24). The link-up, which will create the world's largest carrier, is being touted as providing critical mass to compete against Delta Air Lines and United Airlines while promoting capacity discipline that will enhance profitability across the U.S. airline industry.