Boeing to develop larger plane

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Tuesday, Sept. 21, 1999 | 11:50 a.m.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEATTLE -- Boeing Co. is likely to proceed with development of a larger 747 jumbo jet in the next couple of years, chairman Phil Condit says.

Boeing has been studying the possibility of building what it calls the 747-X for years, but until now has questioned whether there is enough of a market to justify it.

Boeing's chief rival, the European consortium Airbus Industrie, plans its own super-jumbo jet, the A3XX.

Boeing probably will proceed with development of its new 747 version "sometime in the next two years," Condit told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Monday. Such a timeline would make the jet available a year or two before the first A3XX delivery.

Boeing's last all-new jetliner, the 777, cost about $10 billion to develop in the early 1990s.