Word: airbuses
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Boeing's plane will face tough competition for some $50 billion in aircraft orders expected in the 1980s. The fuel-efficient, 229-seat Airbus, made by a French-German-Spanish consortium, will be a strong challenger. Neither McDonnell Douglas nor Lockheed has yet announced new high-technology planes. Instead, they will offer modernized versions of the DC-10 and L-1011. Boeing is gambling big that the airlines will prefer an all-new plane that will still be flying, and coming out in up-to-date versions of its own, in the year...
...seniors graduate from Harvard College, trampling and tearing up the carefully and expensively manicured lawns of Harvard Yard in the process. In his Commencement Address, Freddie Laker comments, "The line for the airbus forms right behind the Phi Beta Kappa procession." Honorary degrees are awarded to John Travolta, Nona Hendryx, Alex Haley, Jann Wenner, Larry Flynt, and Jack Ford. The highlight of the ceremony is a stand-off duel between the clam serving as Mayor of Cambridge and the "rootless" Yale Bladderball...
That $1.25 billion sale would represent an enormous victory for Airbus Industrie, a French-German-Spanish company that is now struggling to keep production lines open and sell enough planes to break even. No European-made passenger jets have been bought by U.S. carriers since the 1960s, when American Airlines and several other carriers took delivery of a flock of British BAC One-Elevens, and United purchased 20 French Caravelles. To win the key Eastern sale, Airbus Industrie offered the airline an in expensive lease deal to try out the planes...
Eastern hopes that the Airbus will prove as popular with passengers in America as it has proved in Europe. There, the plane's eight-abreast coach seating and smooth ride have given it the nickname "the poor man's 747." Before buying it, however, Eastern wants to be certain that the Airbus will match under U.S. operating conditions the economies reported by European airlines. Airbus-Industrie claims that the plane's two huge fan jet engines are terrific fuel conservers, burning approximately 25% less fuel per seat-mile than do the three engines of such competing jets...
Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed, which have long considered the U.S. plane market their own, have reacted to this new European threat by bad-mouthing the Airbus as ill suited to the needs of U.S. airlines. Despite its size, the Airbus is basically a medium-range jet, and American planemakers contend that there are no routes in the U.S. where traffic would be heavy enough to fill a profitable percentage of its seats consistently. Eastern seems willing to take the gamble, however, and U.S. planemakers are apparently afraid that other European jets may eventually follow the Airbus into the American...