ILA 2008: Bombardier C-Series so near but yet so far

Bombardier’s much-travelled CSeries cabin mock-up has arrived in Berlin but will not be seen by general visitors to the show.

The mock up  which has previously been seen at Paris and Dubai is in a facility close to Schoenfeld allowing interested airline visitors to Bombardier’s stand to be whisked away to get an insight into why they should be ordering the  Canadian OEM’s new – but as yet un-launched - family of 100/149-seat commercial aircraft.

Bombardier’s directors gave the go-ahead in February to offer formal sales proposals of the optimised CSeries aircraft family to airline customers.  And so far Qatar Airlines, ILFC, Lufthansa and Northwest Airlines have formally expressed an interest.

And although Bombardier says officially that a ‘launch decision’ is expected before the end of 2008, it’s widely believed that the CSeries’ much-delayed go-ahead will steal the show at Farnborough in July 2008 – always assuming that between 50 and 100 orders are received in time.

Bombardier’s own recently-published commercial aircraft market forecast shows that demand in the 100- to 149-seater segment could total 6,300 airframes – and the Canadian company hopes to get at least its share with the P&W GTF-powered CSeries.

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Source: Flight Daily News