John Langford, founder and former CEO of Aurora Flight Sciences, is launching a new venture to develop hybrid-electric regional transport aircraft. 

Howmet Aerospace has eight mostly smaller manufacturing plants that are closed because of the coronavirus, the company’s chief executive said late April 14, and more were shuttered in March when the Pittsburgh-based supplier was still part of Arconic.

Spirit AeroSystems—the primary supplier to Boeing including for much of the 737 MAX and which does substantial defense industry work—warned Wall Street on April 14 it will record a roughly $160 million loss for the recently ended first quarter of 2020, as well as a pretax loss of around $102 million.

The latest version of the Boeing 737 MAX master minimum equipment list (MMEL) corrects a conflict between the original MMEL’s allowances and pilot troubleshooting steps that allowed flights with no functioning autopilot, even as a checklist calls for autopilot engagement to correct flight-control issue. 

Updated Boeing commercial airliner figures for 2020 through March reveal dramatic order cancellations and reduced deliveries as the air transport market continues to nosedive in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mitsubishi Aircraft is maintaining flight testing of a SpaceJet prototype at its Nagoya, Japan headquarters as pandemic-control measures prevent activity at its U.S. test base.

Europe will launch the public consultation on the technology road map for the proposed Clean Aviation public-private partnership that would follow the current Clean Sky 2 research program.

Airbus decided April 8 to cut commercial aircraft production by roughly one third across the board as it deals with the fall-out of the coronavirus crisis.