Nation's aerospace industry mushrooms with 270 factories.

When International Airlines Group completed the purchase of British Midland International (BMI) from Lufthansa in late April 2012, it presented British Airways with the major challenge of quickly bringing BMI’s Airbus narrowbodies into BA’s existing fleet. From May 2012 to January 2013, in what BA describes as “an extremely complex process,” it integrated 11 Airbus A319s, seven A320s and seven A321s from BMI into its fleet. BMI’s two A330s were returned to lessors because BA does not operate Airbus widebodies.

Forty-three years after entering revenue service, the Pratt & Whitney JT9D series continues to power a cross section of operators sprinkled around the globe. While still diverse, the cross section is much thinner than in years past, however, with many operators flying just a handful of engines. It is a sign of the steady and inevitable decline facing the venerable series.

Malaysian maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) company Airod Aerospace Technologies (AAT) is in talks with French company Altran about becoming a completion center for Airbus A320 passenger-to-freighter conversions. Altran is an engineering consultancy that recently established an office in Kuala Lumpur to serve Southeast Asia.

JetBlue Airways, whose unit costs for maintenance rose nearly 70% from 2010 to 2012, expects to lower annual increases to about 5% in the next few years, thanks in part to flight-hour agreements and price caps on some of its heavy overhaul work, CFO Mark Powers says.

Airbus has installed on the first flight-test A350 XWB (MSN001) its two flight-ready Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines and is also installing the new Honeywell HGT1700 auxiliary power unit (APU) at Airbus' production facilities in Toulouse (France).

The congressional mandate that has created a backlog of foreign repair station applications also has forced airlines to reconsider expansion and contract maintenance plans because desired locations do not have FAA-approved shops, industry executives report.

Inspired by two Roman palaces, the National Building Museum was constructed in the 1880s with the dual purpose of housing the U.S. Pension Bureau and providing “a suitably grand space for Washington's social and political functions.” On March 7, nearly 300 aviation and aerospace luminaries from around the globe gathered in the cavernous building for Aviation Week's 56th annual Laureate Awards.