July 1, 2018. Airbus now owns a 50.01% majority stake in C Series Aircraft Limited
 

The closing of the previously announced C Series transaction between Airbus SAS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Airbus SE (EPA: AIR), Bombardier Inc. (TSX: BBD.B) and Investissement Québec came into effect on July 1, 2018.
Airbus now owns a 50.01% majority stake in C Series Aircraft Limited Partnership, while Bombardier and Investissement Québec own approximately 34% and 16% respectively. CSALP’s head office, primary assembly line and related functions are based in Mirabel, Québec.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmf...f24edd97ee.jpg

According to Wirtschaftswoche, the German FT equivalent, the purchase also includes $925MM government launch aid, $225MM 2018 launch cost recovery and a further $700MM prospective aid for future sales.
Airbus clearly drove a very hard bargain. I'm stunned that neither Boeing nor the Chinese were willing to at least keep Airbus honest.

Excellent news. I hope the partnership is very successful. The CSeries is a fantastic aircraft and I've really enjoyed all my flights on them. Fingers crossed that they become more and more common.

Wouldn't that program have been a great airplane for Boeing's lower size?

Boeing did try, that was the whole 300% tariff that was overturned by the Courts.

Boeing looked at the deal as well. Dont know why they did not offer. AB beat them on a great deal. Now it will be made in the US in Alabama.
Boeing trying to do the same with Embraer, but without much success.

I wonder how long before the C Series changes its name to the A317......

Name is said to be changed to "A200"

"C Series" always was a daft name.

I wonder why they haven't renamed the CS100 as the A100, and the CS300 as the A300.

Oh, hang on ...

The A300 became a game changer when AB went out of their way to make a deal with Eastern Air Lines. Boeing shunned EAL , due to their dire financial situation , and AB took a risk and became the mighty competitor that they are today.

AB finally has a good looking plane.

SAA had a few A300s on internal services. Passenger comfort was dire and cramped so those of us who had to get to Durban from JNB chose to schedule those meetings for wednesdays when the A300 was in for a weekly service and SAA put one of their 747-SPs on the Durban run. The SP had more legroom in cattle class than the A300 had in business class.

[QUOTE][Wouldn't that program have been a great airplane for Boeing's lower size?/QUOTE]

Yes, but Boeing was too arrogant.

When P&W originally offered the Geared Turbo Fan (GTF) to the industry as a potential game changer, Boeing ignored the opportunity as being unworthy of their consideration - after all, the bottom end of the market was not of serious interest to them, so the 60 year old 737 modernised as the 737MAX7 could handle any orders that might fall into their hands.

Also with only 50 units sold after four years of sales effort of the A319NEO, AB accepted that it would not sell and 'bought' the 'nice little C Series' as a complement to the A320-A321 offerings. Bombardier had the only product with 5 wide Y class seating, versus 4 wide on the E-Jets and 6 wide on the 737 and A319.

Airbus is now in a market niche of its own with a new clean sheet product in the 100-150+ seat space, seating 5 wide and offering, superior passenger comfort, superior seat mile costs and reduced fuel burns. It nicely complements the 170-180 seat A320NEO and the 210 - 230 seat A321NEO.

Boeing was in the same position with the B737-MAX7, but could not bring themselves to recognise what the market was telling them. A huge strategic miss on the part of Boeing, which will take them 6-8 years to catch up, with or without Embraer.

Commonality is a complete red herring.

If Airbus injects any technology into the C Series, it will be around production/manufacturing techniques rather than anything for the operators to get excited about.

more likely marketing and finance heft.... they can alsooffer a full range to mix n match....

Yes, they can. But those aren't what's generally understood by "commonality".

Airbus could well make improvements to Bombardier's customer support, too, but that isn't either.

I guess the whole Airbus CCQ is a red herring and the whole "common flightdeck" idea they have been following since the A320 is another "red herring"... Poor Airbus to go down that route when you can have different procedures for each product series (i.e. the Boeing path).;)

A logical step for the CSeries as an "A210" and "A230" would be to commonize the flightdeck with an upgraded A320neo Plus in order to bring it in line with the A350 and to provide common type rating between the families.

It is worth to mention that other manufacturers are working on the "red herring" too with the new 75 seat "MC-21-75" (also called SuperJet 75) where they are working on bringing it in line with the MC-21-200 and -300. I.e. similar operating procedures, flightdeck and so on.

Commonality is an excellent solution and there are no good reasons *not* to do it (especially not if it ends up with one manufacturer, different flight control systems such as mechanical on some models, FBW on others, different layouts on the flightdeck, different engine manufacturers and different maintenance procedures and so on and so forth).

Airbus did have the AE316 and 317 in development to address the CSeries market but shelved the project. The idea was good otherwise - commonality with the A320 family but with a 3+2 cabin.

There are major benefits to gain from commonality and other manufacturers are following a similar path (look at the Tu-204 and Tu-334 with commonized flightdecks or the CRAIC CR929 that will be commonized with the C919 in that department and so on).

Airbus CCQ (Cross Crew Qualification) is an excellent concept, as is their thinking of all their aircraft as belonging to a common family with similar procedures and handling etc.

The examples you quote above have the advantage that commonality is, or has been, an objective when one, if not both, types are/were at the design stage.

That's nothing new, of course, it's almost 40 years ago that we were first getting excited about the 757 and 767 having a common type rating.

But here we're talking about two independently developed products from different manufacturers, both already certificated and in service. Trying to reverse-engineer any meaningful commonality between the current Airbus narrow-body family and the C Series would be both hugely expensive and ultimately have very little point to it. Not what most would describe as a "logical step".

There is one big one and it's called money. The cost of modification to the Airbus family standard would I imagine be quite close the cost of a completely new design. Not to mention it would the existing customers would not be able to order additional airframes a decade later, unless Airbus would continue to offer both CSeries and "A200" at the same time, which would probably drive the costs for Airbus even higher.

I give less than 5% chance of CSeries being developed into an Airbus family-compatible aircraft any time soon.

I don't know about it being a hard bargain for BBD to swallow. They're getting 49.9% of what could easily be a massive production run, without having to scale up the production line themselves. If it works out they're in a good place.

Various reports of what the fbw tech is like suggests that it's very good indeed, so we could see future Airbus products adopting it.

I suspect Boeing saw it as something to buy and kill, rather than an opportunity. China would have liked to own the tech and design but were likely not making the right noises. Reportedly the Bombardier family shareholding still has some sway over the company, and the combination of Boeing's attempted trade war against Bombardier and a then-secret overture of the right sort ("we like tha plane and we want to help you make thousands of them") from Airbus is probably what made the deal stick.

Although I can agree with most of what's being said, I just wonder what and / or from where AB will produce a Silver Bullet to increase the already reasonably good sales of the C Series without an expensive redesign of FBW systems and crew interface, because without those any attempt to sell 'commonality' with other AB products is most likely a non-starter.

So good as the C Series might be, it's still going to have to be sold as a stand alone model in the AB catalogue to existing AB operators.

Maybe AB have seen an opportunity to improve production rates as the deal clincher as far as they're concerned.

I strongly suspect that the C-Series / A317(?) is to Airbus what the MD-80 / B717 was to Boeing...

It will be kept going for a few years for primarily political reasons, allowed to wither on the vine, then will be quietly consigned to the aeronautical dustbin of history. Bit like the Dassault Mercure too.

Pity as it's a nice aircraft, but there you go.

Unlikely. The MD80 was already years old at that point. This is a new beast and supposedly good so it's not going to be binned off any time soon.

The MD-95/717 wasn't even certified at the time of the Boeing/MacDac 'merger' (legacy Boeing people have a different, less polite term) - it was a brand new product (which admittedly had roots in the 1960s). Boeing basically didn't believe that the long term market justified the continued investment to keep the 717 production viable. It's not exactly inconceivable that Airbus will come to the same conclusion about the C-Series.
The biggest advantage to the C-series that Airbus brings is their world-wide customer support network and some economies of scale (i.e. AB has more leverage to force lower prices out of the suppliers).
Flight deck commonality and common type rating is not going to happen - it would be cost prohibitive (think $billions) to make the C-Series flight deck like an A320 - it's just not something you can "retrofit" into an existing design - even the FBW control laws would need to be redone.

Airbus is basically in a no-lose situation - they don't have any real skin in the game. If the naysayers are wrong and the C-Series is a commercial success, they stand to make lots of money. If the C-Series continues to lose money hand over fist in excess of what the Bombardier and the Canadian Government have already agreed to cover, they can just shut it down with no real loss since the real AB investment is minimal.

I do not understand the reference to Dassault Mercure. It was never considered to be acquired by Airbus, almost no existing at that time. The failure of the Mercure was an inadequate design for the intended mission, mainly cruise/VMO speeds too high requiring stronger/heavier structure, too short range almost limited to Continental France destinations, without stating the three crew cockpit when the B737 (starting about 4-5 years before the Mercure) was only two men cockpit.

Whilst Dassault was successful in military aircraft and mainly in business jets - both areas where the economics may not be the most important criteria for selection -, it never made success in the commercial aircraft since the 60s.
Do you even remember the name of the Dassault Hirondelle?

Having worked closely on the evaluation of the CS300 and flown in it many times, I think it will be a great success - not on the scale of the A320 or 737 families perhaps but certainly in comparison to E Jets and even the CRJ series. Airbus concluded that the economics of the aircraft are genuinely superior to the A319neo and that the seat/sector cost was even within a few percentage points of the A320neo. And wait until you fly in it - seat width, window size and noise levels make you realise just how 20th century the A320 and, particularly, the 737 are. To get into such a programme for free and knowing that they can take up to 50% cost out of supplied equipment while adding sales to jack up the production rate - thus further reducing cost - was a no-brainer. Flight deck commonality would have been great but, in the overall scheme of things, not that important.

No, and most people wouldn't since it was a "one and done." However, I believe it helped out with the design of the Falcon 10, which was far from a flop. Though again, that was part of Dassault's niche -- fast jets and biz jets, not commercial aircraft.

Sorry for the thread drift, since your original comment questioned the reference to the Mercure. I don't think that was an appropriate comparison, either. I've not flown a C series, but it looks interesting if for no other reason than it's received so much attention here.
https://www.pprune.org/images/status...er_offline.gif https://www.pprune.org/images/buttons/report.gif

It certainly has all the marks of being the deal of the century in the aviation business, Airbus acquiring a stake of the C series. Boeing's corporate strategy now looks ridiculous in comparison to Airbus's. To catch up Boeing are going to have to do something pretty spectacular (the C Series is indeed very good), and they're going to have to pay for it one way or other. They've just pumped several billion into a merger with Embraer. They're still not making the right noises about properly competing over the long term against the A321neo + whatever variants Airbus dreams up, and yet that's another whole development program Boeing have got to pay for.

Boeing have let Airbus have another very easy ride, just like they let the A320 have a very easy ride over the past 25, 30 years. Somehow in this sector at least Airbus seems to not have to spend hardly anything and yet ends up with the best planes, whereas Boeing seem hell bent on not spending anything at all and are inevitably ending up with the worst planes.

I am mystified as to why the Boeing company has been allowed to be a miserable failure in its corporate strategy. Is it a symptom of short term share price concerns trumping all other considerations? Probably. Pride? Certainly Airbus seems to have had zero corporate cultural problems in admitting that another company has made a superior product, and Boeing seemingly didn't make the same admission and accept the implications when Bombardier offered them a share some while ago. Lack of cash? I mean, had Boeing back in 1995 set out to make an aircraft better than the A320, there would not now be any A320s flying today or being built and sold for a profit.

If they carry on like that for a few more decades, the USA is going to wake up one day and find Boeing is no longer there...

I agree with respect to their narrowbody line-up - they should have bitten the bullet when the neo was launched and gone ahead with an all-new single-aisle. At the time, however, they were stretched on the 787 and couldn't persuade Chicago they should do it - something Airbus counted on at the time.

However, having finally got he 787 rocking, they are determined to strangle the A330neo at birth and may actually manage it judging by the aggressive terms they are putting out at present. Of course RR's troubles are playing into their hands too. While the A350-900 is a clear success, the 787-8 (newly re-invigorated to match the -9) through to the -10 is likely to dominate the mid-size widebody market for years to come. The 777X is a different story though - as is the A350-1000.

C series renamed to A200?

Airbus has formally redesignated the Bombardier CSeries as the A220, complementing its larger A320 single-aisle range.

Its smaller sister aircraft, previously known as the CS100, will be called the A220-100.

flightglobal.com/news/articles/picture-cseries-renamed-as-airbus-a220-450072/

It wasn't just the 787 issues that stopped Mr B replacing the 737.. they also had issues with the 747 programme and their tanker for the USAF and they were looking again at the 767/757 replacement

the 737 was selling well.. it would have been a brave man to turn off that cash flow by announcing a new design.....

The other issue was the Boeing was caught a bit off-guard by the A320 NEO. Boeing really wanted to launch a brand new 737 replacement (I knew people who were working on it) - but when Airbus launched the NEO it was selling like hotcakes, totally outclassed the existing 737-7/8/900 and being little more than a re-engine it would come to market years before an all new replacement aircraft. Worse, it would take years more to bring the new aircraft production up to the ~50-60/month rate that was possible with the A320/737. That would have meant basically conceding a several thousand aircraft market to Airbus until Boeing could bring their new aircraft to market - something that was simply unthinkable.

What going to be really interesting to watch is what happens with the Boeing NMA - rumor mill says it'll be launched by the end of the year. IF it's a really good aircraft it could take over the upper end from the A320 series, while perhaps providing a baseline for an eventual 737 replacement.

So is the CS300 the A220-300 or the A220-200? Do tell.

CS300 is the A220-300 https://www.airbus.com/aircraft/pass...20-family.html

JetBlue taking 60 A220-300s + 60 options to replace its Embraer 190 fleet.

This weeks Flight has a big article on the NMA. They reckon if is launched now it might be in service by 2026. Problem is that by that time the 757 767 numbers left will be small and many will have been replaced already by Airbus & Boeing products.

It really has to something v new and transformative and that depends on a v new engine ..... and that is a serious unknown

This is indeed a major order

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-billion-order

Couple of weeks before Farnborough, maybe surprising they didn't wait, but also may surprise us all if they get the Farnborough demo aircraft into the paintshop and into Jet Blue livery.

Also a big downer for its direct competitor from Embraer, where they are not only replacing their current E190s but Jet Blue were seen as one of the forthcoming New Generation Embraer's potential largest purchasers, given they are one of the largest users of the current type.

Indeed and they'll still make shedloads out of it even if the market share settles at 60:40 in Airbus' favour. But, in any event, they'll likely be forced into an earlier replacement than Airbus will - possibly, as TDracer says, on the back of the NMA.

I wonder if the Boeing board recognises that the HQ move to Chicago was a big mistake - the ivory tower is too far from the heart of the company and they're out of touch from the operations.