Word: airbuses
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...last summer for a model (the L-1011) with twice the passenger capacity of jets currently flying short and medium runs. But last week, as teams from both rivals flew into Manhattan to make their final sales pitches, McDonnell Douglas seemed to have won the world's first airbus order...
Barring last-minute hitches, American Airlines this week expects to sign a $750 million contract for some 30 to 35 McDonnell Douglas tri-jet DC-10s. Like Lockheed's airbus contender, the Douglas plane was devised to enable the airlines to fly travelers in economy-size flocks. With traffic growing at a steady 14% a year, the carriers consider air buses their best hope of avoiding menacing traffic jams in the skies between major U.S. cities in the '70s. Though primarily developed for hauls of 250 to 1,000 miles, the DC-10 will be capable of flying...
Despite Lockheed's quick start, McDonnell Douglas is grabbing the first-and possibly decisive-foothold in the 1,000-plane airbus market partly because U.S. airlines are still smarting over the performance of Lockheed's last commercial transport, the turboprop Electra. In 1959, Electras began coming apart in midair; Lockheed spent $25 million strengthening structural weaknesses, and the plane has performed splendidly ever since. With the American order in hand, Douglas may have a bargaining edge, too, with airlines such as United, Eastern and Delta, which are also shopping...
Last week there were two distinct rebuffs from Paris. The first involved British, French and West German plans to build the subsonic, short-range Airbus, which would carry 250 passengers and go into service by 1972. By agreement of the three governments, Britain was to build the craft's engine. Trouble is, the envisioned Rolls-Royce model is still on the drawing boards, while the U.S.'s Pratt & Whitney already has a suitable engine in the test stage. So France's largest manufacturer of aircraft engines, SNECMA, announced that it would exercise its option to build...
Trouble in the Civilian Sector. Still, the European combines have yet to profit from rising civilian demand. Orders for Caravelles, Tridents and null have been disappointing, and British, French and West German manufacturers are struggling to get a medium-distance "Airbus" off the drawing boards. Plans now call for delivery in 1971. In the meantime, U.S. companies may well corner most of the market for subsonic jet transports...