Business: Boeing Bonanza

TWA "buys American"

On Thanksgiving Day in London, officers of Trans World Airlines and Europe's Airbus Industrie smiled, bantered and made a handshake deal. TWA, the last of the major U.S. lines to order an intermediate-range jet fleet for the 1980s, indicated that it would choose the European-made Airbus A310. But then Boeing, the apparent loser, put its flaps up and accelerated. The Seattle company dispatched E.H. ("Tex") Boullioun, president of its commercial airplane operation, to TWA headquarters in Manhattan. Boullioun improved Boeing's terms and worked some blue-yonder magic.

Last week TWA got off the Airbus and decided instead to buy ten...

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