Originally Posted by
Caboclo
Does anyone understand why the C Series wrecked Bombardier? They already had a series of successful airliners under their belt. Does the C incorporate a lot of new, untested tech?
Bombardier never developed anything but private jets. The RJ's were an scale up of the Challenger program. Developing the C series was always an ego trip and people who looked at it knew it. The way the family controlled the company through super shares meant the usual due diligence never happened.
I am told the plane is a great success with customers and is hitting or exceeding the fuel numbers so technically it hit the mark. But like every airframe it was late and over budget. The project never passed the smell test but the sustained drop in oil prices simply made the plane uneconomical as a capital expenditure. The saving delta on the fuel does not justify the price with oil at $50 a barrel. Oil was over $100 a barrel when the project started and was expected to go up.
Even if oil was at $150 Bombardier would have had to sell to A or B , but they could have gotten some real money. There is no place in the market for a single product manufacturer to challenge the duopoly.
As Warren Buffet said, if anyone knew how unprofitable aviation was going the be they would have taken Orville and Wilbur out behind the dunes and shot them!