Australia's Regional Express said it sold a Saab 340A to Bridges Worldwide Express, which will have the aircraft converted into a freighter.

EgyptAir will become Star Alliance's 21st member today in a ceremony in Cairo. The carrier said it fulfilled all minimum requirements to become a Star member in fewer than nine months. It hopes to benefit from feed provided by Star members to bring further traffic to Cairo and Star hopes to be able to extend its presence in Africa via its newest member.

The Sukhoi Superjet 100 will not be delivered to launch customer Aeroflot until the second half of 2009, a year behind schedule, Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Co. and the Russian airline revealed this week. A Sukhoi spokesperson confirmed the delay to Agence France Presse. Lev Koshlyakov, Aeroflot's deputy head, told Reuters that Sukhoi had informed it via a letter not to expect any SSJ100s until the 2009 third quarter. The carrier had expected to take delivery of as many as 30 in the second half of this year.

The steep rise in fuel prices confronting the commercial aviation industry will drive demand for new aircraft, according to Boeing, which said yesterday that it forecasts a $3.2 trillion market over the next two decades "driven by an increasing demand for airplanes to replace older, less efficient aircraft."

Vibro-Meter, a subsidiary of Meggitt Group, reached agreement with Boeing to supply the engine vibration monitoring system on the 777. The EVM will be available in a basic version with the same functionality as the previous system, plus an advanced version featuring an open architecture platform with computational power that enables engine manufacturers to integrate health monitoring algorithms. Rolls-Royce customers will receive the advanced system and Pratt & Whitney and GE customers the basic version.

MNG Airlines, the Istanbul-based cargo carrier, purchased an A300-600F from Air Atlanta Icelandic. Aircraft will join MNG's fleet at the end of this month. It currently operates eight A300-200Fs and five F27Fs.

Ryanair exercised options for three 737-800s for delivery in June 2010.

SITA concluded a partnership with Singapore's Stratech Systems through which it will make Stratech's all-weather iFerret vision-based airfield/runway surveillance solution available to SITA's airport customers to identify, track and display foreign object debris in real time. The system has been deployed at Singapore Changi and will be tested by FAA this winter at Chicago O'Hare.