Rollout of newest Boeing jet may be delayed
     SEATTLE, Washington,- April 8, 1998 4:26 PM EDT - Persistent
 production problems afflicting Boeing Co. have spread to the com-
 pany's southern California facilities and threaten to delay the
 aerospace giant's newest model, officials said Wednesday.
     The first 717, the smallest model in Boeing's family of commer-
 cial jets, may not be rolled out of its Long Beach, Calif., plant as
 scheduled next month due to production problems, said Warren Lamb, a
 spokesman for the company.
     "The original plan was to roll out in May and fly in June and
 we're evaluating those dates," he said. "There may be a delay, but
 we haven't finished our assessments."
     He declined to comment on the nature of the problems affecting
 the jet, formerly known as the MD-95.
     The 717 is the only former Douglas Aircraft model that has won
 Boeing's unqualified endorsement since Boeing's $16.3 billion
 acquisition of McDonnell Douglas Corp. last year.
     Boeing is phasing out production of the larger twin-engine MD-80
 and MD-90 models and recently has raised questions about market
 prospects for the three-engine MD-11, a wide-body jet being promoted
 mainly as a cargo carrier.
     But in January company executives unveiled the renamed 717 as a
 full member of the Boeing family and said they had undisclosed
 customers in addition to launch customer, AirTran Airlines, which
 ordered 50 of the jets when the airline was known as ValuJet.
     Boeing officials said as recently as mid-March that the 717 was
 on schedule for first flight in June and delivery to AirTran in mid-
 1999, but its schedules have slipped repeatedly in the past year to
 the great frustration of airline customers.
     A top executive of International Lease Finance Corp., one of
 Boeing's biggest customers, was quoted Wednesday as saying he was
 losing interest in the 717 because of the production problems and
 might turn to a proposed model from rival Airbus Industrie instead.
     "Members of our board are becoming skeptical about Boeing's
 recovery and so about the 717," ILFC President Steven Hazy told
 USA Today.
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           Computer setback for air traffic controllers
 By Paul Marston, Transport Correspondent - Electronic Telegraph UK
 AIR traffic controllers are working under severe pressure because of
 repeated management and technical failures in introducing a computer
 system to cope with the sharply rising volume of flights, the
 Commons transport committee said yesterday.
 It blamed former managers of National Air Traffic Services, an arm of
 the Civil Aviation Authority, for persisting with a pioneer and
 highly complex software system for its new control centre at Swan-
 wick, Hants, causing a delay in opening that already stood at three
 years and might extend further.
 The committee's report described it as remarkable that managers had
 pressed on with the - 163 million project after the American author-
 ities abandoned plans for a similar system in 1995 after protracted
 problems. It also accused the Department of Transport of astonishing
 complacency as the scheme's delays mounted. "Either the Department
 did not detect the early warning signs of a major problem, or it did
 not act on them," the report said. The decision to build the Swanwick
 centre to replace the London Area and Terminal Control Centre at West
 Drayton, near Heathrow, was taken 10 years ago to create sufficient
 safety capacity to meet the expected growth in air traffic. The
 annual total of flights handled by the London centre increased by 50
 per cent between 1989 and 1996, the year operational control should
 have transferred to Swanwick. It is forecast to increase by a further
 20 per cent to 1.8 million by 2003.
 National Air Traffic Services' latest estimate is that Swanwick will
 open in the winter of 1999-2000, although it accepts there is a risk
 that this timetable will not be met. The committee took evidence from
 independent computer experts, who warned of the possibility that the
 system, designed originally by the American computer corporation IBM,
 "might never work satisfactorily".
 The MPs called on the Government to commission an independent audit
 of the project to establish whether the software could ever be made
 to work or should be abandoned, and whether the extra demands on
 staff and equipment at the London centre were increasing the risk
 of an accident.
 The all-party committee said the evidence presented to it on safety
 had been contradictory, although Gwyneth Dunwoody, its Labour chair-
 man, voiced her belief that the air traffic control system was "very
 safe". Numbers of near-misses had remained flat over the last five
 years, despite the rise in traffic.
 The report also criticised National Air Traffic Services managers for
 having already paid the software contractors, the US group Lockheed
 Martin, more than 90 per cent of their fee even though the system was
 a long way from working. It further recommended that a contract to
 purchase a similar system for the new Scottish control centre should
 not be signed until the system was seen to operate satisfactorily.
 The controllers' main union, the Institution of Professionals,
 Managers and Specialists, said it supported the report's proposal
 for an independent audit. An official said: "The overriding priority
 is to reduce strain on the existing system."
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