McDonnell Douglas (MDC) is understood to have given board-level approval to its civil-aircraft arm to start offering the MD-XX tri-jet family to airlines.
A final board decision was due to be made at a meeting held at St Louis, Missouri, on 25 October attended by MDC president and chief executive Harry Stonecipher, and Douglas Aircraft president, Mike Sears. A shortlist of two engine types was also due to be drawn up at the same meeting, following pressure from General Electric to narrow down the choice before a formal decision to go ahead with the programme.
The timing of the "authority-to-offer" decision is in keeping with the timetable outlined at Farnborough, which called for programme definition in the final quarter of 1996 and launch early in the first quarter of 1997. A formal go-ahead is anticipated in early 1997, with first deliveries provisionally scheduled for late 1999.
Despite the narrowing of the engine shortlist, industry sources indicate that, even if one of the three manufacturers (General Electric, Pratt & Whitney or Rolls-Royce) is eliminated at this early stage, the strong market-preferences of key airlines could well re-open the competition. Northwest Airlines, for example, is a keen P&W user and is interested in the MD-XX. American Airlines and Swissair are believed to indicate strong interest in both the GE and R-R proposals. The MD-XX family consists of two main members, both based on a re-winged MD-11. The baseline MD-XXLR (long-range) will seat 309 passengers in a three-class layout, while the MD-XX stretch would carry 375 passengers.
Source: Flight International
