While public investors avoid A&D as effects of COVID-19 ripple across industry, private equity is rushing in.

Daily passenger throughput at U.S. airports reached one million people on Oct. 18 for the first time since mid-March, marking a symbolic turning point in the airline industry’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Aircraft lessor GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) and California-based investment-management firm PIMCO are partnering on a new aircraft-investment project, which will initially focus on narrowbodies.

There is promising new science on the horizon as NASA’s nimble Osiris-Rex sample return spacecraft prepares for a daring brief encounter on Oct. 20 with its distant target, the primitive asteroid Bennu.

Cathay Pacific predicts that its passenger capacity will still be less than half pre-COVID-19 levels in 2021, even assuming best-case outcomes prevail.

Chinese LCC Spring Airlines will take delivery of up to seven Airbus A320 family aircraft by the end of 2020, increasing its fleet by about 7% as it expands its business by redeploying international capacity to domestic routes.

Flight services provider DroneUp has announced a pilot program with Walmart and Quest Diagnostics to deliver COVID-19 test sample collection kits by drone.

Embraer has delivered its 250th business jet in Latin America with Phenom handovers to two first-time jet buyers.