European Union emission allowance (EUA) prices rebounded in April, after cheaper prices attracted buyers back into the market. EUAs for December 2012 delivery under the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) fell as low as €6.23 ($8.27) per metric ton on April 4, an all-time closing low for the 2012 contract. The weakness in early April reflected ongoing slowness in European economic growth, as government figures showed that countries including the U.K. slipped back into a double-dip recession in the first quarter.

Airline gets into a second notoriously tough business—oil refining.

European legacy carriers have tried hard to get costs under control, with limited success. And now an increasing number of them are reverting to the more radical option of outsourcing.

United Airlines' fierce opposition to a Southwest Airlines proposal to start “near-international” service from Houston's Hobby Airport might suggest a larger issue: the potential for a glut of services from the U.S. to the Caribbean and Latin America that could force some players to pull out or reduce their services in the lucrative markets.

Boeing and its vast international supply chain are within weeks of delivering 787s that require none of the long retrofit sessions that have added billions of dollars in costs to the program since the company hosted a splashy launch party in 2007 for a jet that turned out to be unflyable.

Across composite and metallic aircraft structures, technology is being developed and deployed to minimize component lead times, reduce manufacturing costs and increase production rates. Automated processes that can take component geometry data directly from three-dimensional design databases are high on the most-desired list for aerospace manufacturers.

Mitsubishi's documentation for the manufacturing processes and engineering analysis is not in order fo the MRJ.

Cutting and drilling of cured composite components during manufacture or repair are a growing challenge as structures become bigger, more complex and costly.