Mahindra Aerospace has agreed to buy a Boeing plant in Melbourne, Australia, and will move the equipment to a facility to be built in India, kick-starting a new aerostructures business there, says an industry executive familiar with the transaction.

Singapore Airlines has resumed recruiting cadet pilots, which it had frozen early last year when a business downturn led to capacity cuts and excess manpower. With the air travel industry starting to pick up again after a long slump, the airline says it must recruit now to meet future operational needs because it takes about three years to train a cadet. The training is done at the airline's facilities in Singapore and Australia, which are run by its wholly owned subsidiary, Singapore Flying College.

The success of a new KLM service will help reveal how quickly airlines can exploit the potentially important opportunity for intercontinental flights to secondary Chinese cities. The destinations offer huge populations of people whose incomes and ability to travel are rising; but for the moment, they are tough markets that only two Western airlines—KLM and Lufthansa—have been brave enough to pioneer.