Bombardier announced its second quarter financial results today and repeated in its press release the first flight of its CSeries will be in “the coming weeks.”
News articles are here and here.
An earnings call is at 10 am EDT today.
A Bombardier official yesterday said the entry-into-service, slated for mid-2014, will be “reassessed” after first flight. BBD in the past had pretty much planned one year for EIS after first flight. We’re going to predict this will slip to early 2015 now.
Category: Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, CSeries, Embraer
EMB may have to start on a new airplane, and soon to compete with the BBD C-Series The E2 is just a refresh of the existing E-Jets. The C-Series is a composite jet, which BBD, Boeing, and Airbus all recognize as the future for new airplane designs.
Technology takes a back seat to orders which the Cseries has yet to show yeaes after launch.
The BBD C-Series has about 177 firm orders and another 131 are on options. Commitments total 37 plus another 23 options.
The C-Series covers from 108 seats (CS-100, 2 class) to 160 seats (CS-300, 1 class dense).
In contrast the E-Jet/E2-Jet covers from 70 seats (E-170, 2 class) to 134 seats 144 seats (E-195E2, 1 class dense).
The EMB E-Jets still have about 266 firm orders on backlog, while the E2 has about 150 firm orders.
“Bombardier is facing pricing pressure from Embraer. This puts BBD in a squeeze between EMB at the bottom and Airbus above.”
I have this the other way around: It is Embraer and Airbus who are facing pressure from Bombardier. BBD decided about ten years ago that they would never let themselves caught up in a low pricing strategy again. They had been selling a great number of CRJs at a discount and never made a decent profit in the process (like Douglas Aircraft). So it was decided a long time ago that the CSeries would sell on its value, not on price.
Bombardier is attacking (what a fitting name). Embraer and Airbus are defending their respective positions. While Boeing keeps dreaming (with the MAX, not the Dreamliner). With 177 firm orders and the best aircraft in its category the CSeries is almost ready to fly. The next step after that will be when it starts carrying passengers. At that point it should already have a very comfortable backlog. Why lower the prices now to get more orders when they know that the phone wont stop ringing after these important milestones have been achieved.
We are now focussed on the CS100 first flight. But wait for the psychological impact the CS300 FF will have on the commercial aviation community! That’s when Bombardier will start making huge craters in the order books of the competition. 😉
Arcamone said that he expects one more order this year. It looks like it is going to be a substantial order. Possibly from Air Canada.
Arcamone specified that it was going to be a firm order.