Meanwhile, at Timco Aviation Services, located next door to Honda, a group of 20 new graduates from Guilford Technical Community College just completed initial training at the heavy jet MRO outfit. Timco regularly hires from the nearby tech college. And with good reason. Pete Laszca, general manager for the MRO operations, cites the high demand for qualified aircraft techs. That situation is getting a lot of industry attention.

Transport Canada has ordered Bombardier CRJ700, CRJ900 and CRJ1000 operators to modify slat components to prevent failure of a pin that could cause the related slat to break away. The directive (CF-2013-31), which is effective Oct. 22, gives operators 6,000 flight hours or 30 months, whichever comes first, to replace locking plates with “an anti-migration assembly” on both the left-and right-wing No. 3 slats.

The demand for British civil aftermarket work is expected to grow in the next decade, but most startups face an uphill struggle to enter a market being squeezed by OEMs. To add to their headaches, the current shortage of skilled engineering labor is set to worsen in the next decade or two, while the trend of partnering with OEMs offers a double-edged sword: MRO providers can gain reliable work from a handful of big customers—but only while it lasts.

The aftermarket issued a no-confidence vote for its tool control practices—with one-quarter of respondents selecting “highest concern” in a recent Aviation Week survey. The Web-based poll, conducted in June and July, questioned the global civil aviation aftermarket industry about tool control practices, in preparation for a panel on asset tracking during Aviation Week’s MRO Europe Conference late last month.

Airbus is projecting an active secondary market for the A340 family—an outlook that could be bolstered by Rolls-Royce’s (R-R’s) efforts to reduce shop visit costs of Trent 500 engines outfitted on -500s and -600s variants of the four-engine jet. The airframe manufacturer’s product-support forecast sees about 325 A340s still in service in 2017, down only by about 25 from today’s total. Notably, it expects about 90 aircraft to change hands in the next four years, including 26 A340-500s/600s.

Aerospace industry group asks FAA to lift ban on portables below 10,000 ft.

The construction of a new and much-larger MRO facility in Batam will allow Indonesia’s Lion Air to move into third-party maintenance work, as well as catering to the carrier’s own rapid fleet growth.

A Brazilian regulator has ordered Embraer regional jet operators to inspect windshield center-post attachment points after reports of failed bolts.