Canadian election coming on the 19th. As I see it, 2 of the main contending parties will offer some kind of help to Bombardier, as both are currently promising the sky to any Quebec based business enterprise. Bombardier may get a hand up from all us poor Canucks.
Well if the Liberals win tomorrow (and they're up in the polls) then Bombardier can pretty much kiss the 12 orders from Porter Airlines goodbye. Those orders are conditional on an expansion of the Toronto City Airport, which the Liberals are on the record of opposing.
Bombardier is still pretty much a family-owned company, and no one will invest a huge amount of new cash into the company unless the family is willing to make some deep concessions (which so far they're not willing to do). Hence a joint-venture might be a better option.
And for Canadians, do we really want to bail out a super-rich family which has insisted on some questionable strategy? In Quebec (and Canada) there is a lot of patriotic feelings when it comes to Bombardier, but the reality is we may be bailing out a bunch of billionaires.
The most recent all-new new airplane programs that suffered delays are the Boeing 787, the Airbus A350, A380, the Bombardier CSeries, the Mitsubishi MRJ, the AVIC (now COMAC) ARJ-21, the COMAC C919, Sukhoi SSJ and the Irkut MC-21.
Mitsubishi's MRJ maiden flight is scheduled within the next two months...
Yeah. And even if the MRJ turns out to be a complete disaster and they cancel the entire thing, what's the impact to parent companies Mitsubishi and Toyota?
Nothing. They have trillions of dollars in assets. The MRJ is a minor "side investment" to them.
And that's one of the ways the CSeries differs from the other programs mentioned.
The CSeries isn't just a "moonshot", but is a "bet the farm" proposition. When you "bet the farm", mistakes aren't just costly: they threaten your very existence.
During the 787 program, even after numerous delays, Boeing's overall financial health was barely affected. Their credit rating went from A+ to A. Airbus Group's credit rating actually
went up during the A350 program.
Bombardier's credit rating is now junk, with negative outlook for even further reductions.
The 787 and A350 also had a proven market, with over 800 firm orders each at the time of their respective first flights, all but guaranteeing their financial positions.
Bombardier is struggling right now just to keep their 243 orders.