The decline and fall of Bombardier

Subscription Required

Introduction

May 6, 2019, © Leeham News: Bombardier was once the leader in providing regional airliners to the industry.

Today, it’s all but exited the industry.

With the announcement that its Belfast manufacturing facility and a smaller one in Morocco are for sale, only the CRJ regional airliner remains.

Expectations are that that, too, will be gone before too long. Bombardier has been weighing its “strategic options” of the CRJ since last year, when it agreed to sell the Q400 turboprop to Canada’s Viking Air. This deal is to close mid-year.

Here’s a look back how Bombardier went from a leader to an also-ran.

Summary
  • Bombardier pioneered the regional jetliner and dominated the turboprop sector.
  • Embraer surpassed the former and ATR the latter.
  • A bold move to jump into the lower end of the market dominated by Airbus and Boeing, coupled with bad management and over-extending the balance sheet, nearly bankrupted the company.

To read the rest of the article Login or Subscribe today.