Fastjet has already faced more than its fair share of troubles in trying to establish a pan-African low-cost operation. Now its chairman has resigned, and auditors are questioning the airline's reliability.

When Japanese industry launched Mitsubishi Aircraft and the MRJ in 2008, the regional jet was intended to enter service late in 2013 as the only aircraft in its class with the decisive advantage of an advanced new engine. In accepting the cost and risk of the unconventional geared engine and in adopting a long, slender wing optimized for modest cruise speed, the developers were betting on high fuel prices.

In early April, when Larry Lawson arrived at Spirit AeroSystems, the company had completed a quarter with earnings, revenues, operating margins and deliveries that exceeded analysts' expectations. So the new president and CEO began his tenure with a built-in lift from the previous year's troubles—a $590 million pre-tax charge for failing to meet delivery and cost targets—that prompted his arrival.

The only new aircraft over which CFM and Pratt & Whitney compete head-to-head is the Airbus A320NEO, and at the 2011 Paris air show it was the struggle for market share on this newly launched project that grabbed the headlines.

Airbus enters another crucial phase in the A350 program

Europe's industry is marshaling its arguments to defend proposals seeking a substantial increase in funding for aeronautics research even as the recession-hit region scales back once-ambitious plans to boost government support for R&D to increase competitiveness. Proposals are being finalized for a follow-on to Europe's Clean Sky public-private research program that would increase funding to €3.6 billion ($4.7 billion) from €1.6 billion, with half to come from the European Commission (EC) and half from industry and academia.

Comac's eight-year schedule for developing the C919 158-seat airliner has always looked doubtful, even though it was at least two years longer than Bombardier gave itself for the technologically similar CSeries. It is looking even more questionable now that the first flight has been delayed by up to a year.

The Russian aerospace industry hoped the revamped Tupolev Tu-204SM would serve as a bridge until launch of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) MS-21 narrowbody in 2017, but it still does not have a single order, despite its recent certification by aviation authorities in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).