No, Canada
Published 9:00 pm Monday, January 30, 2006
Bombardier has pulled the plug on its proposed CSeries jet, which would have competed with Boeing’s 737 and Airbus’ A320. The Canadian jet builder instead will put more emphasis on its larger regional jets, reports Bloomberg News. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000082&sid=a3PGwmmz4NBY&refer=canada
Key Quote: “‘Reinforcing their traditional businesses — regional jets and corporate jets — makes a lot of sense,” said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst at Fairfax, Virginia-based Teal Group. ‘It’s familiar turf, they know the customers, and there’s much less risk than trying to attack a market that’s got two entrenched competitors.’”
Reuters http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2006-01-31T165954Z_01_WNA0192_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESS-TRANSPORT-BOMBARDIER-COL.XML&archived=False reports there was one big problem — no launch customer.
Key Quote: “‘Without launch orders, we could not make a launch decision,’ Pierre Beaudoin, president and chief operating officer of Bombardier Aerospace, told reporters during a conference call. Beaudoin said the CSeries program was on hold, but not abandoned, as it would continue to seek firm orders for the airliner.”
This is a story with some local interest. In early 2004, the Snohomish County Economic Development Council put out feelers to see if it could entice Bombardier south of the border to build the C Series jets, taking advantage of the state’s aerospace industry tax break and the big pool of trained but unemployed aerospace workers floating around here. Scuttlebutt has it Boeing was not pleased about this — in any event, the effort never amounted to much.
There may be another local wrinkle. The Globe and Mail http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20060131/RBOMBER31/TPBusiness/Canadian reported this morning — prior to the Bombardier announcement — that the Canadian jet builder is in talks with Russia’s Sukhoi about cooperating with its new Russian Regional Jet. Flight Structures Inc. of Marysville is the lead contractor on the RRJ’s interiors.
Key Quote (once again from Aboulafia, who might just be the most-quoted American in Canada today): “Richard Aboulafia … (said) if the story about Bombardier ditching its C Series and joining the Russians is true, he finds it baffling. ‘I don’t understand what’s in it for them. If it’s intended as a way of recovering gracefully from the C Series, I’m going to have to vote no,’ he said. ‘It seems to me the way forward for them is to reinforce their dominance of their market position, maybe with an all-new regional jet.’”
