According to Singapore's Shipping Times,
http://business-times.asia1.com.sg/s...30894,00.html?, the A318 may face a long delay due to P&W's engine development difficulties. Here's a partial quote:
(TOULOUSE) AIRBUS may have to delay initial deliveries of its A318 aircraft, originally set for late 2002, because an engine being developed by Pratt & Whitney falls short of Airbus expectations, the plane maker said.
'Airbus won't put into service a product that's not (performing) at the top of its technical parameters, and the engine in its current configuration doesn't do that,' Noel Forgeard, the European plane maker's chief executive, said in an interview.
A delay may mean that CFM International, a venture of General Electric Co and France's Snecma, would have its CFM 56 version of the engine on the first A318 to fly commercially. That engine, being modified from versions on Boeing Co's 737, was ordered by Air France for its A318s, with deliveries set for 2003.
'The CFM will appear in 2003