Boeing '797' all-new plane design generates interest from United Continental

United Continental has taken a close look at an all-new jetliner that Boeing engineers are developing for trans-Atlantic flying, and the airline likes what it sees. "What we've seen so far is very, very interesting to us," said Andrew Levy, United's CFO. "We certainly hope Boeing launches the airplane. We think there is a need for it." An endorsement from United, a large Boeing customer, would go a long way toward making the business case for so-called middle-of-market jetliners. While the airplane concept exists only on paper so far, Boeing has honed the design to seat between 225 and 260 passengers and worked to bring production costs in line with prices that airlines would be willing to pay. "I wouldn't be surprised if there is a decision to offer by this year," John Plueger, CEO and co-founder of Air Lease, said of the first step in Boeing's process to formally introduce a new plane. "That might be a bit early, a bit aggressive. But that would not surprise me." United had been among the skeptics of the jets that Boeing has spent years developing to fill the gap in its product line-up between the largest of the narrow-body 737 models and the smallest 787 Dreamliners. As Boeing is designing a twin-aisle aircraft with the range to fly from London to New York, budget carriers are shifting more mid-range flying to relatively inexpensive narrow-body jets such as Airbus' A321neo. After delving deeper into the Boeing design, "we're convinced, we get it. We understand the economics," Levy said at the ISTAT annual conference in San Diego. "We thought a twin made no sense, but we walked through it and had our questions answered. From what we've seen, we like it. But it's a paper airplane. Hopefully they'll launch it."<br/>