Airbus partner and aerospace structures company Aerolia has delivered the first A350 XWB nose section to Airbus’ facility in St. Nazaire, France.

China Eastern Airlines took delivery of its first Boeing 737-700NG outfitted with the high-altitude/high-temperature airport operations feature package and the new sky interior. China Eastern Airlines Sichuan Co. will operate the aircraft at high altitude airports in western China. GECAS delivered two new Boeing 737-800s to Skymark Airlines.

Ducommun AeroStructures has been awarded a contract to manufacture fuselage skins for the Bombardier CSeries aircraft. Ducommun will deliver the fuselage skins, composed of advanced aluminum alloys, to Bombardier's China-based supplier and partner Shenyang Aircraft Corp. The initial contract will extend through 2015. Austrian Airlines completed the retrofit of its Airbus A320 family aircraft fleet, adding lighter seats and a new cabin interior.

Alcoa has developed new aluminum-based sheet, plate, forgings and hard alloy extrusion solutions for the aerospace market, which it said will provide "dramatically lighter and lower-cost short-range airplanes" than their "composite-intensive" counterparts. The new aluminum-based products combine new alloys and advanced structural technologies, and could increase fuel efficiency by up to 12%, the company estimated—even up to 27% when combined with new engines.

Rockwell Collins said its AHS-4000 Attitude and Reference Heading System is now certified for use onboard Bombardier CRJ1000s. It also announced its FMS-4200 Flight Management System is certified and will be standard on CRJ700/CRJ900/CRJ1000 aircraft.

Dunlop Aircraft Tyres won a five-year contract with Icelandair Technical Services to supply new tires and provide retreading for a fleet of 16 Icelandair aircraft and 12 757-200s "flown by airlines in the Nordics and Russia," it said.

Jetairfly based a new Boeing 737-800 at Charleroi Airport, lifting its aircraft based at CRL to three narrowbodies supporting 18 destinations. The Belgian airline subsidiary of TUI Travel deploys a fleet of 16 aircraft on 120 routes. AmSafe Industries won a contract by to supply cargo restraint nets for Sukhoi SuperJet 100s. Aigle Azur took delivery of a new Airbus A320.

Airbus announced it received the first set of A350 XWB main landing gear produced by Messier-Dowty at its test facility in Filton. Delivery of this MLG set for the A350-900 follows the arrival last month of the nose landing gear (ATW Daily News, April 15), which will soon be installed together into the landing gear systems test rig, paving the way for integration testing to begin toward the end of 2011, said Airbus.