The regional airline industry continued to look forward to a stretched turboprop, but thus far neither ATR nor Bombardier has gone beyond informal consideration. "There's been substantial interest in a Q400X," Bombardier Commercial Aircraft VP Rod Williams said last week at the Regional Airline Assn. conference in Salt Lake City. "But we're not there yet. There's not a formal product program."

Pratt & Whitney's PurePower PW1000G geared turbofan program for the Bombardier CSeries and Mitsubishi Regional Jet will enter the detailed design phase by midsummer, VP-Next Generation Product Family Bob Saia told ATWOnline yesterday. This stage, which follows completion of the preliminary design phase, will take 12-15 months, leading to first engine runs by the third quarter of 2010. "We start testing in the middle of next year, we get engine certification at the end of 2011 and start flying on the MRJ. . .and we fly on the CSeries in the middle of 2012," Saia said.

Boeing said it completed the first engine runs on the Trent 1000s powering the first 787 yesterday. Engines ran for 40 min. According to the company, "the occasion marks the first all-electric start of a commercial jetliner engine on a commercial jetliner." Engines already had been started electronically in test facilities, it noted. Engine runs began with the Hamilton Sundstrand APS-5000 APU providing power to start them.

Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. is on schedule to deliver the first MRJ90 by 2013 to launch customer ANA, which has firm orders for 25, Executive VP Junichi Miyakawa said yesterday at the Regional Airline Assn. conference in Salt Lake City. The company completed its preliminary design review in April with critical review scheduled to be finished by year end. First flight is anticipated in 2011.

Boeing said yesterday that it completed assembly of the first 747-8 freighter's forward fuselage. "The 89-ft., 2-in. fuselage section, featuring the airplane's signature upper deck, was moved from the final assembly installation tool for sealing and testing before beginning systems installation," the manufacturer said. The 747-8's fuselage is stretched by 18 ft. 4 in. compared to the 747-400 and more than 13 ft. of that stretch is located in the forward fuselage.

Finnair added its third A330-300, which will enter service today on a flight to Delhi. Two more A330s will arrive in June and November.

SuperJet International said yesterday that it is taking a hard look at its original plan to build a 75-seat regional jet and likely will go for an aircraft in the 100/115-seat range to complement the existing 95-passenger SSJ 100 platform.

Lufthansa Systems signed a seven-year contract with Freebird Airlines of Turkey, which will use Lido eRouteManual and Lido FMS data from Lufthansa Systems' aeronautical database.