Aircraft

Canadian airframer Bombardier is hiring more staffers to work exclusively on the CSeries programme.

By the end of this year, Bombardier will have as many as 1,200 employees working on the 110/130-seat airliner family. "So we have 250 more employees to hire this year," says Bombardier commercial aircraft programmes vice-president Ben Boehm.

The firm this fall intends to break ground on its first CSeries building in Mirabel, a testing and training facility called the 'complete integrated aircraft system test area' or CIASTA. The structure will house the first CSeries testbed aircraft, and will be built before a CSeries assembly plant is constructed nearby.

Boehm says everything is on track for the CSeries to meet its 2013 entry-into-service.

"Nothing is changing on the CSeries timeline, despite the downturn. We have not changed anything in terms of hiring and scheduling."