Airbus today delivered its first made-in-China aircraft from a factory in Tianjin.

The European aircraft maker and Boeing rival plans to build four A320 aircraft a month at the factory by 2011.

The rollout comes at a delicate time for Airbus when worldwide orders have slowed to a near halt and airlines worldwide are postponing and canceling deliveries.

Airbus isn't the first foreign planemaker to assemble planes in China. Brazil's Embraer now assembles commuter jets in a Chinese factory, and McDonell Douglas once built MD-80 aircraft in a Chinese factory.

The idea of a Chinese factory is two-fold: less expensive labor and a home country advantage in sales.

China is becoming the world's largest market for airliners as its population becomes more affluent.

But prior tries at building airliners in China proved problematic with uneven quality and production snafus

Delta Air Lines has moved its ticketing to the former Northwest airlines counters in the center of the ticket lobby at Sea-Tac Airport.

The airline, which merged with Northwest last year, also has moved its flights from the A Concourse to Sea-Tac's South Satellite, the airport announced today.

The moves complete the integration of Northwest's activities into Delta's at Sea-Tac. All of the Northwest Airlines logos have been removed and replaced with Delta's as part of that consolidation.

Baggage for Delta flights will arrive on the airport's carousels 3, 4 and 5.

The parent company of retailers TJ Maxx and Marshall's agreed today to pay $9.75 million in a settlement with multiple states, including Washington, regarding a data breach that exposed the credit card information of thousands of shoppers.

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna said $2.5 million of the settlement will fund a Data Security Trust Fund to be used by the states to advance enforcement efforts and policy development in the field of data security.

“Safeguarding personal information isn’t just good business, it’s crucial for our economy,” McKenna said.

Data leaks can cost a company millions of dollars and damage their reputation, McKenna said.

McKenna added that money from the settlement will supplement state efforts to enforce smart business practices and to educate businesses and consumers about how to protect personal information.

In January 2007 TJX Companies announced a data breach that exposed at least 45.7 million credit and debit cards to possible fraud in the computer systems.

The breach began in July 2005, but wasn't detected until December 2006.

Under the settlement with the multi-state group of 41 Attorneys General, TJX must also certify that its computer system meets detailed data security requirements specified by the states and must encourage the development of new technologies to address weaknesses in the U.S. payment card system.

Filling a gap that American Airlines is leaving by abandoning its San Jose, Calif.-Austin, Texas flights, Alaska Airlines announced new service between the tech-oriented cities.

The flights will continue on to Portland on the same plane.

The new daily flights begin Sept. 2, said the SeaTac-based airline.

The airline earlier this year announced new flights from Seattle to the Texas capital beginning Aug. 3. American had abandoned that route in a route downsizing earlier this year.

The first flight of Boeing's oft-delayed 787 Dreamliner, until today scheduled to happen by the end of June, was postponed indefinitely this morning.

Boeing said it needs to strengthen the area where the plane's wings join its composite body.

The proposed modification will involve a "small number of parts," said Scott Fancher, head of the 787 program. The modifications can be installed without removing the wings and won't add significant weight or aerodynamic drag to the plane.

The problems involve several areas a few inches long, he said. The parts needed to fix the problem can be held in a person's hand, said Fancher. A total of 36 locations are involved on both sides of the aircraft.

The parts involved in the modification will be made in Boeing's fabrication division, likely in Auburn. The parts are metal, either titanium or aluminum.

This morning's delay announcement is the latest in a string of delays that have moved the Dreamliner's first flight nearly two years beyond its original schedule of late summer 2007.

Scott Carson, president of Boeing's Commercial Airplanes division, said the company needs time -- likely several weeks -- to design modifications to the wing-body junction, install them and to reschedule the first flight.

The potential weakness was discovered in static strength testing of another example of the Dreamliner.

Boeing's computer model of the plane failed to accurately predict the strain and stress on the areas that need to be modified.

Strain gauges on the static test plane disclosed those flaws, Fancher said, and visual inspection confirmed what the gauges were showing.

The strength issues were discovered a few weeks ago. Further study showed that the initial test plane could fly but the flight test would have to be extremely limited without the modifications.

The areas being modified involved structures built by Japan's Mitsubishi and Fuji and designed by Boeing and those two Japanese partners.

The plane's "wing box," the area where the wing attaches to the fuselage, had been previously strengthened after early testing uncovered weakness in the original design.

The Dreamliner is a revolutionary aircraft, the first large passenger jet designed largely of composite materials.

The plane has been plagued with production and design issues since its start. Although the aircraft made its public debut on July 8, 2007 at Everett, the plane has undergone a handful of delays as workers at Everett completed work not done by Boeing partners, installed or replaced missing or defective fasteners and modified its structure.

The modifications are likely to delay the whole series of six test and early production aircraft.

Boeing's began notifying its 56 787 customers of the delay Monday night. Not all had been notified by the time Boeing held a press conference early this morning.

The flight test delay is likely to domino through the production delivery schedule causing the first production planes to be delayed. The first production aircraft was to be delivered to launch customer All Nippon Airways in the first quarter of next year.

Carson said how long those delivery delays will be is still unknown.

While the parts are being designed, built and tested, gauntlet and taxi testing will continue for the first two test aircraft, said Boeing.

The stock market punished Boeing for the delay with a nearly 8 percent drop in its stock price this morning. At 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time, Boeing was selling at $43.28 a share, down $3.67 from Monday's close.