Posted on September 13th, 2010
Bombardier Aerospace “is starting to see signs of recovery as shown by the significant reduction in business aircraft order cancellations,” Bombardier president and CEO Pierre Beaudoin said yesterday during an investor conference call. During the second quarter ending July 31, Bombardier took gross orders for 26 business jets but had 12 cancellations, resulting in net orders for 14 business aircraft. While this is much better than the 27 orders and 80 cancellations (-53 net) a year ago, “We’re seeing only a slow progressive trend for order intake,” said Bombardier Aerospace president Guy Hachey. “We expected the market recovery to be better by this point, though the business pipeline for business jets is good.” Demand is stronger for the company’s large-cabin Globals, with a 28-month backlog as of July 31 versus 26 months a year ago. Challenger backlog is nine months–“within our target range of nine to 12 months,” Hachey said–but is down from 13 months last year. Learjet demand is the weakest, with backlog for Bombardier’s light jets at seven months. And while this is one month’s worth of backlog more than last year, Bombardier delivered just three Learjets in the second quarter versus 13 in the same period last year. The company also has 11 unsold “white tail” aircraft, which Hachey admitted are mostly Learjets.
Tags: jet charter
