Airbus is projecting an active secondary market for the A340 family—an outlook that could be bolstered by Rolls-Royce’s (R-R’s) efforts to reduce shop visit costs of Trent 500 engines outfitted on -500s and -600s variants of the four-engine jet. The airframe manufacturer’s product-support forecast sees about 325 A340s still in service in 2017, down only by about 25 from today’s total. Notably, it expects about 90 aircraft to change hands in the next four years, including 26 A340-500s/600s.

Aerospace industry group asks FAA to lift ban on portables below 10,000 ft.

The construction of a new and much-larger MRO facility in Batam will allow Indonesia’s Lion Air to move into third-party maintenance work, as well as catering to the carrier’s own rapid fleet growth.

A Brazilian regulator has ordered Embraer regional jet operators to inspect windshield center-post attachment points after reports of failed bolts.

Among airlines, manufacturers and the finance community, news of yet another mid-life aircraft being harvested for parts will rekindle the debate about adjusting the useful life of an airframe.

The FAA yesterday ordered Boeing 767 operators to inspect main landing gear (MLG) components and revise maintenance programs after cracks and heat damage to pivot joint components were found during dozens of gear overhauls. The damaged components included pivot pins, truck beam lugs and inner cylinder lugs, all found in the center of the gear truck between the two sets of wheels. “Heat damage and cracks were found at the pivot joint location [and] caused by the truck pitching motion during normal airplane operations,” Boeing says in a service bulletin.

Norwegian Air Shuttle is in the process of replacing the NavAero electronic flight bags (EFB) and software applications on its fleet of 79 Boeing 737s with a new system built by Scandinavian Avionics, running Jeppesen applications.

Operators of Airbus narrowbodies powered by IAE engines continue to find cracks in engine pylon ribs under a mandated inspection program, leading European regulators to keep the checks in place for those models while ending the requirement for CFM56-powered aircraft. The cracks, in aft fairing Rib 5, caused one in-flight loss of a pylon tail cone. The incident led Airbus to recommend inspections for all of its narrowbodies—a move mandated last year by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).