Business: Boeing Rolls On

But not with British wings

The world has seldom seen such huge international manufacturing alliances as planemakers are now forging. Their aims: to win access to the latest technology, help spread the cost of developing new planes and, not least, to counter nationalistic objections to government airlines buying "foreign" craft. The diplomacy involved can get both complex and testy, as witness the three-cornered negotiations from which Boeing last week came out a big first-round winner.

Boeing sought both British Aerospace wings and Rolls-Royce engines for its new 757, a twin-engine plane that will carry up to 195 passengers on short-to medium-range flights. Simultaneously...