Frans Swarttouw announced that Fokker and McDonnell Douglas Corp. of St. Louis were preparing to link up and build a Fokker-designed 150-seat, medium-range passenger jet.

Fokker’s challenge to Boeing

When it comes to flying high, few businessmen can measure up to Frans Swarttouw, 49, of The Netherlands. Having built Rotterdam’s containership terminal into a key operation of the world’s biggest and busiest deepwater port, Swarttouw took command three years ago of Holland’s weak and floundering…