Delta Air Lines buying aircraft partly-made in North
Bombardier Aerospace’s workforce in the North received a boost on Thursday with a significant new order worth $5.6 billion (€4.9bn) from Delta Air Lines for 75 of its C-Series aircraft.
Bombardier’s Belfast facility developed, designed and manufactures the aircraft wings for the C-Series.
The Canadian aerospace giant is in the process of implementing a major redundancy programme in the North which could result in 630 job losses this year and a further 500 next year.
Bombardier has said the major order from Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines is the largest on the books so far for its new generation C-Series aircraft programme – which is both behind schedule and over-budget by an estimated $2 billion.
Alain Bellemare, president and chief executive of Bombardier, described the Delta order as a “strong endorsement”.
‘Tremendous momentum’
“The addition of Delta to our marquee C Series customer list gives us tremendous momentum as we approach entry-into-service this summer,” Mr Bellemare said.
Bombardier also said that the C Series aircraft programme was ramping up towards full production which will boost production levels of the all-composite wings for the CS100 and CS300 aircraft at its Belfast facility.
The group today also reported larger than expected losses for the first quarter of the year – with losses for the three months to March totalling $138 million.
Bombardier outlined in its latest financial update that it “used about $200 million in free cash flow on the C Series program in the quarter”.
It has said that it plans to “achieve a break-even free cash flow for the C Series programme by 2020”.
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