British Aerospace killed it; Aerospatiale of France and Alenia of Italy will likely bring it back. The model is right there on the Aerospatiale stand in Hall D.

It was called the AI(R)JET when the three were partners in the former Aero International (Regional)-a 70- to 90-seat regional jet in a DC-9 configuration with four-abreast seating. BAe, however, flush with the recent successes, and profits, from its own RJ85/100 series of quadjets, balked at the $1.2 billion in development costs. So BAe went its way and Aerospatiale/Alenia went back to their old ATR partnership and began looking for new partners for the project.

Sources from within the partnership tell Show News that the AI(R)JET, by whatever name, will almost certainly re-emerge in essentially the same configuration, but with five-abreast rather than four-abreast seating.

At least one likely partner is CASA of Spain, which several years ago was forced to abandon its then-proposed CASA 3000 high-speed turboprop. Others also may join.

The new airplane would be the third contender in the in the 70-seat jet market, behind the Bombardier CRJ-700 and the Fairchild Dornier 728JET family due to emerge early in the next decade. The latter has raised the bar for others with its five-abreast seating, that coming well after Bombardier's four-abreast configuration was sealed in concrete.

Some analysts question whether there is room for more than two 70- seaters, especially in the major North American market, plagued by its numerous pilot-union scope clauses that limit capacity for regional-airline affiliates to generally 70 seats and less. That would seem to force ATR to come up with a better mousetrap than the competition if the project is to be viable.

The original AI(R)JET concept actually called for three variants-a 58-seater, 70-seater and 85-seater, with the 70-seater coming first. Fairchild Dornier will offer a 50-seater-plus, a 70-seater-plus and a 90-seater-plus with the 70-seater also coming first. There is some talk of Bombardier also coming out with a 90-seater, but that would require an all-new fuselage, probably sitting atop the Global Express wing. Such a product would not, however offer the commonality of the ATR and Fairchild Dornier families, a concept for which Bombardier can take much of the credit at the regional-airline level.

By Arnold Lewis