A Nepali businessman and a policeman also suffered gunshot wounds in the shoot-out, which lasted for about five minutes. Police found 40 spent cartridges at the site. The incident did not disrupt flights. The airport, operated by state-controlled Malaysia Airports Holdings handled about 26 million passengers in 2007, up by some 10 percent from 2006. A rising tide of petty crimes such as handbag snatching and burglary has made Malaysians feel unsafe in the last two years, with some analysts saying the government's failure to crush it played a key role in its stunning election reversal last month. On Tuesday, a Bangladeshi plane made an emergency stop in Bangkok after a man pulled out a knife during the flight, causing panic. The GMG Airlines flight was enroute from Kuala Lumpur to Dhaka.

Udvar-Hazy, who runs the world's largest and most influential plane lessor, called the state of the 787 program "not pretty," according to JPMorgan analyst Joseph Nadol. Boeing has said it will issue a new production schedule next month, and is widely expected to announce a delay, but it gave no indication of that on Thursday. "The center wing box issue has been addressed," said 787 program spokeswoman Yvonne Leach, in a statement. "Boeing is working its normal processes for developing a new airplane." Boeing is officially sticking to its plan to deliver the first 787 early next year, after production problems forced two delays in the past six months. But most in the industry are expecting more delays and a drastic cut to the production schedule. Boeing had originally planned to deliver 112 787s by the end of 2009, later scaling that back to 109. Most Wall Street analysts are expecting far fewer, with Nadol of JPMorgan now forecasting only 30 deliveries of 787s in 2009.

Airbus, which hopes to supply aircraft to Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways, has said it aims to procure more parts from Japanese companies. Shimadzu expects total sales to rise 13 percent in three years to JPY320 billion yen (USD$3.22 billion) in the year ending March 2011. But aviation equipment sales would fall 17.7 percent to JPY24.7 billion in the same year, compared with its forecast for the year ending this month. Analysts expect at least six months further delay for Boeing's new lightweight Dreamliner, due to last-minute design changes. That could mean delivery in the second half of 2009, about 15 months behind the original schedule, which the US plane maker has already pushed back twice.