For Mexico's airline maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) industry, this is a time of change, especially given recent developments at Aeromexico and Mexicana MRO Services, the two heavyweights in airframe third-party maintenance in the country. Aeromexico runs a joint venture with Delta TechOps, and Mexicana MRO Services is operating despite the August 2010 bankruptcy and service suspension of Mexicana Airlines, which once accounted for 60% of its business.

European Union emission allowance (EUA) prices drifted lower in May, reflecting nervousness in the wider financial markets as traders mulled the risk of a Greek exit from the eurozone. EUAs for December 2012 delivery under the EU emissions trading system (ETS) fell as low as €6.42 ($8.02) per metric ton on May 18, down from €7.60 on Apr. 30.

Due to financial distress, the municipality of Milan is preparing to sell its majority stake in the Malpensa and Linate airports authority, SEA. The idea is to sell a 50% stake, which could fetch at least €750 million.

After a long and unusually contentious debate in Congress, President Obama signed into law a bill to extend the Export-Import Bank's charter and provide $140 billion in lending authority by 2014. The debate this year turned into a tiff between aerospace giants Boeing and Delta Air Lines, with Delta expressing fear that Ex-Im financing of widebody jets undercuts its global competitiveness. And some Republicans and conservative interest groups called for an end to the bank and its corporate welfare.

Hardly a month passes without the debut of required navigation performance (RNP) procedures somewhere around the world.

The Eaton chief suspects that the introduction of new technologies that make aircraft cheaper to operate may have permanently shortened their economic lifecycles.

Defense companies that primarily provide services rather than products will be among the first to be hit by reductions in military spending, Moody's Investor Services warns in its latest commentary. Beyond the next fiscal year, a decline in troop deployments overseas will lead to lower services outlays, Moody's says. And as contracts roll over and the Defense Department's heightened focus on procurement cost control takes hold, margins are likely to shrink.

Six months from a potential blunt cut to federal spending and government is continuing to warn, industry is starting to act, and lawmakers are looking for an escape hatch. If Congress does not approve $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction or reverse a law passed last year, the entire federal government will suffer an across-the-board budget cut of the same amount. And half of that will be targeted at the Pentagon.