Virgin has broadened its competitive scope by acquiring low-cost and regional carriers.

The lack of airline consolidation in Europe is fairly remarkable given that, unlike elsewhere in the world, a large part of the industry is actually up for sale.

Aimed at providing the equivalent of 2% fuel-burn savings in baseline performance, the rolling upgrade effort will also include a series of optional product improvements to push the total potential fuel-burn savings on a per-seat basis to as much as 5% over the current 777-300ER by late 2016.

Highlights included the unveiling of the Airbus Helicopters H160 and the announcement of a study between Bristow Group and AgustaWestland to optimize commercial operations of the AW609 tilt-rotor concept.

Aviation Week editors discuss the news from HeliExpo this week including Bristow's tiltrotor bet, Airbus Helicopters's H160 unveiling and more.

This year is shaping up to be another period of major change for Air New Zealand as its fleet update gathers momentum.

Production is not keeping pace with record-breaking aircraft orders and somewhere soon down the line, wants and needs are going to collide.

New leadership is in place at Air Berlin, where hopes are high that CEO Stefan Pichler will be able to guide the airline back to profitability after years of decline.