DAIMLER-BENZ Aerospace (DASA) has signed an agreement with Samsung of South Korea and Aviation Industries of China (AVIC) to launch a joint feasibility study into a future small airliner.
Work will begin immediately following the Peking agreement, which DASA chairman Jurgen Schrempp calls "the foundation stone . . . for successful and long-term co-operation between DASA and our Chinese and Korean partners".
The study will focus on a 100- to 120-seat aircraft, to be launched after the turn of the century. DASA expects a 20-year global market for almost 4,000 aircraft in the 70- to 150-seat class, and is attempting to sandwich this new airliner into a niche between the Fokker 100, built by DASA's Dutch subsidiary, and the Airbus A319, which is assembled at DASA Airbus' Hamburg site.
DASA wants the new project, ideally under the Airbus umbrella, to have as much technical commonality as possible with the Airbus family.
Source: Flight International
