That Ryanair's CEO has a way of showing his contempt for regulators is no longer news in Europe, so it is perhaps par for the course that the carrier is launching a takeover attempt of Aer Lingus just as overseers look into whether the existing shareholding relationship is problematic. Nevertheless, the move creates renewed uncertainty about the future of Aer Lingus and its shareholding structure, as the airline is hoping to ride the structural changes it has made in recent years into a more profitable future.

Although Central and Eastern Europe are experiencing faster growth than any other part of the continent, many of the region's airlines are still old-school national carriers. Now many of them are trying to find a new model.

Every day, hundreds of aircraft traverse the world's busiest oceanic airspace over the North Atlantic, spending most of their journey out of range of existing surveillance technology. A planned global satellite-based service could change that, bringing the advantages of air traffic control to this vital corridor as well as to other areas lacking surveillance coverage.

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There is no doubt that the NEO stole the spotlight at last year's Paris air show.

The Russian fleet of commercial helicopters is still a Soviet legacy, consisting mostly of outdated and aging models. Russian models will most likely continue to dominate the heavy-class category, but foreign rotorcraft manufacturers will gain market share with lighter models.

Can Boeing dominate this year's Farnborough International Airshow?

Consolidation in the aerospace and defense supply chain can be big news when it involves publicly traded companies as prominent as United Technologies and Goodrich.