43,
An interesting comment that contines this discussion. Furthermore the SB2000 airfame can be configured for up to 58 passengers by replacing the aft 'hot' galley with the smaller forward unit and istalling the 4 across back row bench and an additional seat row.
Extra passengers and new motors producing 15 percent lower fuel burn for the same performance would impressively reduce regional operator unit costs for airlines choosing to operate such an aircraft.
Harry,
I was amused when you cited 50 tears of reading Jane's, AWA, Flight and Flying as your authoritative references to JackX's request for clarification.
I think all your references are reliable organs, where the journalist's indeed did their jobs by reporting the news that aerospace companies (in this case made) and resisted the current journalistic tendency of trying to create the news themselves and fit it into a real time media grap or a sound bite.
My point is that aerospace companies (in this speculation - Saab) do their own thing, which is commented on by journalists at the time as news and afterwards as perspectives on the decisions that were made.
None of the high quality preiodicals you mentioned, to the best of my knowledge, has ever attempted to predict the future. They have only ever commented on the successes or otherwise of the decisions made by their subjects and indeed, when this discussion is over and Saab reveals what they will do, or not on this subject, Flight, et al, will write either a news breaking story or a nice little retrospective feature accordingly.