Lufthansa Bombardier Aviation Services has awarded TNT Express the transportation contact to ship mission-critical aviation parts within Germany. As part of the deal, TNT Express collects the parts from Bombardier's warehouse in Groß-Gerau between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. and delivers them to LBAS aircraft maintenance engineers and mechanics in Berlin Schoenefeld Airport the next morning before 6 a.m.

There's a custom in Washington that U.S. defense contractors don't talk trash about their competitors, at least not in public. After fiercely competing for multibillion-dollar Pentagon contracts, the winner often placates the loser with a piece of the action. When Lockheed Martin was awarded the contract to build the F-22 fighter jet, it hired Northrop Grumman to build the plane's radar. Boeing won the contract to build the Air Force's KC-46 tanker plane and asked Northrop and Raytheon to contribute key components. Everyone ends up happy. It's how it’s always been done.

Project-based operations that improved on-time and on-budget performance by 10 percent or more were nine times as likely to also improve dramatically on key financial metrics such as net profit margin and cost of compliance. Nearly every project-based manufacturer feels it is important for their company to improve on end-to-end project management, but less than half of the companies in project manufacturing, aerospace and defense (A&D) and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) sectors with project-based operations make wide use of any recognized category of commercial software system. This includes limited use of enterprise resources planning and quality management (QMS) systems.

The Japanese government has long banned most weapons exports. That policy helped buttress Japan's pacifism, but it also hindered the growth of the country's defense industry. Because it couldn't sell parts overseas, Japanese defense companies missed out on chances to develop fighter jets, tanks and other weaponry with the U.S. That's changing.

Boeing suppliers are developing "a sense of acceptance" that the manufacturer's push for a 15 percent reduction in supply chain costs won't ease up even as the economy improves, an informal survey of several major suppliers by Canaccord Genuity finds. Whether the push will succeed remains to be seen.

There are cyclical industries, and there's the defense industry. In wartime, billions of additional dollars flow to defense contractors from the U.S. government, and in peacetime, Congress tightens the money spigot. It's a cycle that all contractors are used to, except this time around there's an added dimension: the Budget Control Act of 2011 and sequestration.

For 2013, airlines are expected to return a global net profit of $12.9bn. This is expected to lead to a net profit of $19.7bn in 2014. Both are improvements on previous months. The upward revision reflects lower jet fuel prices over the forecast period as well as improvements to the industry's structure and efficiency. Passenger markets continue to outperform the cargo business, which remains stagnant both on volumes and revenues.