Douglas Says It Will Trim Payroll : Aerospace: Failure of Saudis to place jet order leads to move. Hundreds of jobs may be affected.

Douglas Aircraft Co. confirmed Monday that it will soon start laying off workers at its Long Beach plant because it has yet to receive a long-awaited jetliner order from Saudi Arabia. Sources said the cutback could involve several hundred employees.

Douglas, which had expected to sell the Saudis its wide-body MD-11 and its smaller MD-80 and MD-90 jetliners, said it does not yet know how many employees will be let go, and company spokesman John Thom declined to speculate on a figure.

But sources familiar with Douglas’ planning indicated that at least 300 people could be laid off, primarily engineers and other salaried workers involved in airliner design.

The layoffs also stem from delays in Douglas’ plan to launch its new MD-95, a 100-seat jetliner. Douglas had hoped that Scandinavian Airline System would place the “launch” order for the jet in March, but SAS instead ordered Boeing Co.’s 737.

Douglas told workers at the Long Beach plant--which employs about 10,000 people for the production of commercial jets--of the pending layoffs last week.

That was not the only bad news. The company, a unit of McDonnell Douglas Corp., said a previously announced slowdown in deliveries of the MD-11 next year will mean layoffs of production workers in Long Beach later this year. No estimate on that number of jobs was provided, either.

All of which extends the seesaw pattern of Douglas’ fortunes. A dearth of new orders and an overall industry slowdown in recent years has forced Douglas to slash its commercial airliner payroll by 75%, from 43,000 people in 1990. However, Douglas decided to set up production of MD-11 fuselages in Long Beach in February, providing up to 2,000 jobs.

And the Saudi order was supposed to protect jobs. Amid much fanfare, President Clinton announced in February, 1994, that the Saudi national carrier, Saudia, planned to buy at least 50 jetliners from Douglas and Boeing in a deal worth $6 billion.

A firm order was supposed to be signed by last May, and Douglas planned to start delivering the planes in 1996.

But the Saudis, burdened with financial problems, have yet to place the order. Aircraft executives, along with U.S. and Saudi officials, have said the order is unlikely to be canceled outright, but neither have they said when it will be forthcoming.

“We just can’t wait anymore,” Thom said in explaining the pending layoffs. “We don’t build a plane unless there is a firm order for it.”