Three important merger activities should be completed this week at Kellstrom Materials, the company formed through Kellstrom Commercial Aerospace’s May 17 purchase of AirLiance Materials from Lufthansa Technic. The combined company will start using Kellstrom’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system Phoenix, which will go live at the legacy AirLiance facility near Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

The Pentagon has added $12 million to its 2014 spending plans to equip its Boeing 737-based C-40s with a fuel-tank inerting system, the same upgrade mandated for U.S. operators of Boeing commercial aircraft. The 2013 spending plan anticipated about $1 million more than fiscal 2014-17 for various required modifications. In the fiscal 2014 request, the figure jumped $6.1 million for 2014 and another $6 million for the outyear estimates through fiscal 2017.

AAR has received FAA approval to start operating the 520,000 sq. ft. facility in Lake Charles, La., previously occupied by Aeroframe. The FAA granted the operational approval three weeks after AAR signed an agreement to acquire the facility. The company started seeking FAA approval for the site—its sixth—immediately after signing the agreement, and had hoped to receive the agency’s sign off “within weeks,” according to Dany Kleiman, AAR’s aviation services group vice president-repair and engineering.

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) late last week ordered inspections of wing leading-edge lift device components on 46 early-build Airbus A380s to correct an issue introduced on the production line. EASA says “a deficient assembly process” could cause small gaps to form between bolt heads and bushings installed on droop nose hinge arm forks. Gaps can transfer stress to the affected fork, causing fatigue damage and possibly breaking them, EASA explains. The directive is based on a July 9 Airbus service bulletin.

The long-predicted consolidation of the aviation used-parts business appears to be finally happening, or at least accelerating significantly. The case for consolidating aircraft aftermarkets, both in repair work and in supply chain provision, always has been strong. The logic is that bigger, more diversified companies can provide more comprehensive services to airlines that want to outsource functions that others can expedite more efficiently. But several factors have slowed integration.

It pays to be the new guy, according to data gathered for the 2013 Aviation Week Workforce Study. Pay for new college graduates rose by 3.4% between 2011 and 2012, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). In the aerospace and defense industry, the increase was slightly lower, at 3.2%. Companies with fewer employees worked to retain their workforces, awarding pay increases on average of 4.1%.

Aerospace and defense companies large and small plan to hire in 2013. While much of the hiring will replace workers leaving for retirement or a new opportunity, the numbers also include some all-new jobs and new skills.

As a war-weary nation grapples with how to cut military spending and a dysfunctional Congress allows meat-ax budget cuts to fall on the Defense Department and NASA, one might expect that the U.S. aerospace and defense (A&D) industry's best and brightest talent would be heading for the exits. Indeed, one-in-five A&D professionals under the age of 35 submitted resignations in 2012, up from 12% the year before. The good news: most left to go work for another aerospace company.