An undisclosed customer has signed a firm order for 20 Challenger 350 midsize business jets in a deal worth $534 million at list prices, Bombardier says.
The order offers the company a timely boost as it rebuilds a business jet order backlog depleted by a wave of order cancellations last year. It also shows the re-engined and updated Challenger 350 is winning new orders despite a recent influx of new competitors, such as the Embraer Legacy 500 and the forthcoming Cessna Citation Longitude.
Bombardier Business Aircraft president David Coleal highlights the “performance and reliability” of the Challenger 350, which succeeds the 14-year-old Challenger 300 with an improved Honeywell HTF7350 and Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 avionics.
“The class-leading Challenger 350 aircraft dominates the super-midsize segment and continually outperforms – it’s simply one of the best business jets in the market,” Coleal says.
Bombardier is counting on the Challenger 350 to bounce back after a difficult year. In 2015, cancellations exceeded new orders by 24 aircraft in the business jet division, including a one-time write-off of 74 orders in the backlog for the terminated Learjet 85 programme. Bombardier also halted marketing efforts for the Learjet 60 and Challenger 850, while announcing a planned reduction of output for the Global 5000 and 6000 business jets.
The company’s firm order backlog for business jets stood at $17.2 billion at the end of last year.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
