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Aviation History
1988
1988 - 0910.PDF
MDC keeps trying with Airbus LONG BEACH A team of McDonnell Doug las Corporation executives, headed by chairman John McDonnell and Douglas Aircraft unit president James E. Worsham, is in France this month for a series of meetings to negotiate possible collabo ration. William Gross, senior vice- president commercial prod ucts, told Norman Lynn that McDonnell Douglas hopes to forge a combined Airbus Industrie/McDonnell Douglas product array that will threaten Boeing Commercial Airplanes' 50 per cent share of the world market for commer cial aircraft. "We are studying scen arios," Gross told Flight. "What we hope will come out of the talks is a broader spec trum of products to offer the marketplace than we could [offer] separately." The McDonnell Douglas/Airbus product spectrum would com pare with Boeing's "almost one-on-one," he said. The team would look at the A320 and an A320 stretch, along with the MD-80 in that market; an MD-91/92 in the smaller marketplace; and the MD-11 and big Airbus twins to compete with the 767 and 757, up to 747 size. "Then, in the three-engine category, if we could stretch the DC-10/MD-11 fuselage cross-section even more with some of the Airbus tech nology, we would have a better competitor to the 747." McDonnell Douglas execu tives are enthusiastic and confident of a successful out come to the talks. "We think it would be a good thing," says Worsham. He says that initial agreement on a 400-seat competitor to the 747 is likely. "If we fix our MD-11 fuselage to an Airbus wing, that would be a superior airplane to the 747," Worsham said. Gross said that mating state-owned Airbus to private-enterprise McDonnell Douglas is practical; "and we have precedents," he added, "in GE-Snecma on CFM-56; More Jetstreams for NPA North Pacific Airlines of Pasco, Washington, a United Express regional airline, has just ordered six more British Aerospace Jetstream 31s to complement its present fleet of ten. NPA holds options on up to 24 more of the type, and is expanding its network rapidly in the USA's Pacific Northwest. IAE with Japan and Rolls- Royce and Pratt & Whitney; and a 25-year relationship between Douglas and Aeritalia". Boeing refuses to comment officially on an Airbus/ McDonnell Douglas combina tion. Sabena continues search for partner BRUSSELS Sabena president Carlos Van Rafelghem says that Bel gium's national airline is still talking with several other European airlines to decide on a form of co-operation that will make all companies involved stronger to survive in the 1992 liberalised European common market. Talks with SAS have not resumed, but there are indi cations that SAS now has a different approach to possible integration with Sabena. Any resumption of these talks will be an SAS initiative. Van Rafelghem said that he had been talking, or is still talking, to several European airlines. These, he said, are Air France, KLM, Lufthansa, Swissair, and Luxair. He added that "the order in which I mention them has no signifi cance whatever". Sabena's own preference is for a formula that will make the most of the advantages offered by the Brussels hub, because the airline is exer cising the rights of the Government, which still owns 54 per cent of the airline. In Van Rafelghem's view— and this is the view of the Sabena negotiators—any future co-operation between Sabena and'other airlines can be only through a jointly- owned subsidiary under Euro pean law, meaning that the partners involved would form a new jointly-owned airline which would co-ordinate their operations. A takeover of Sabena by another operator is out of the question. However, since Belgium's national airline has recently decided to join in the Galileo CRS system, which repre sents a Sabena investment of some BFr300 million (£5 million), it could be argued that the road the Belgian airline wants to follow is clearer. Van Rafelghem says that Sabena has a common inter est with some other members of the Galileo group, who have to specialise in transit traffic because their national market is too narrow a base to allow prosperity. This naturally brings together some of the partners who are greatly interested in Sabena, because the Belgian airline is one of the officially approved "co-ordination cen tres" created by the Belgian Government and allowing considerable fiscal advantages to foreign investors. This, and the Brussels hub in the centre of Europe, explains the interest several airlines have in Sabena, according to Rafelghem. The counter-argument is that no present competitor wants to see the Brussels hub expand, especially nearby Amsterdam Schiphol and KLM. How soon a decision may be expected remains a mystery. The choice will be announced to the Government in due time, Van Rafelghem says. "But I cannot work any faster than Mr Dehaene," Van Rafelghem complains, allu ding to the slow progress of the Belgian politician who has been trying to form a government since the general elections in December. This, of course, could mean that the formula is there, but that Sabena is waiting for a new government to be formed. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 9 April 1988
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