Why Bombardier selling spree?
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All of them have a new cockpit based on the A220, and common type rating with the A220.
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Keep producing the A320neo, A321neo and A321XLR (at ever-increasing price, of course) for as long as airlines want to value commonality with their existing fleets above anything else.
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Keep producing the A320neo, A321neo and A321XLR (at ever-increasing price, of course) for as long as airlines want to value commonality with their existing fleets above anything else.
Airbus is not stupid enough to throw away a mature, well-designed and well-tested product with millions of hours of safe flight, just because they purchased a product line for free that might be slightly better than one of their current products.
It is a different cockpit and even some different cockpit philosophy. Finally there should be commonality between A220 and A320 families. Not sure if downgrading the more modern A220 setting is the way to go.
I appreciate the responses, but I must have formulated my question unclearly. I understand that Bombardier is moving out of the commercial aircraft segment. And I understand why... or I think I do. But even for their private jets they still need aerostructures and wiring. And they sold both of those. Or do they have more somewhere? It looks like a fire sale of all aviation assets. Is Bombardier closing its aviation business altogether? Or just shrinking and concentrating it?
From FIRST QUARTERLY REPORT Three-month period ended March 31, 2019
19. ACQUISITION OF A BUSINESS
On February 6, 2019, the Corporation acquired the Global 7500 aircraft wing program operations and assets from
Triumph Group Inc., for a nominal cash consideration. This transaction will strengthen Bombardier’s position as a
leading aerostructures manufacturer, to enable the company to leverage its extensive technical expertise to
support the ramp-up of the Global 7500 aircraft, and secure its long-term success. Bombardier will continue to
operate the production line and integrate the employees currently supporting the program at Triumph’s Red Oak,
Texas facility.
So they bought that, sold other fabrication, product lines, training group. This and the other report I looked at said they thought biz jets were solid.
https://ir.bombardier.com/en/financial-reports
Maybe it's on the basis of internal ROI?
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!
