Good Chances for Bombardier CSeries jet

Bombardier has announced the production of its 130 seater C series jet before the openning of the Farnborough Air Show. With an Aluminum-Lithium alloy fuselage, Composite wings and a Pratt and Whitney Geared Turbofan (GTF) engine, it offers better economic and lower emission advantages over rival models from Airbus and Boeing. Both very important in a $200 per barrel, and global warming environment.

And Bombardier might just succeed against these two giants in this passenger plane sector.

Bombardier C series drawing

Boeing and Airbus both has recently announced that their new aircrafts in this sector will not be introduced until 2018 at the earliest. With the Bombardier C jet planned to be introduced by 2013, it will have a long five year monopoly period. This period may be shortened if Brazilian plane maker Embraer will lengthen and enhance its E-195 passenger jet to a similar seating capacity. However, the C series jet will have the big advantage of a new revolutionary engine in the Pratt and Whitney GTF, and lighter fuselage and wings.

The main threats that the Bombardier C jet may face towards its success are:

1. The reliability and on-service date of the Pratt and Whitney Geared Turbofan (GTF) engine - the reliability of the reduction gearbox inside the hot engine is still being proven, and potential problems on this will have a big effect on on-service date. Long term reliability also is still to be proven.

2. The sturdiness of an Aluminum-Lithium fuselage with Composite wings passenger jet on a high cycle operation.

3. Production capability of Bombardier factories, specially its partners in China and Ireland.

4. WTO protests from competitors specially Embraer.

5. Massive discounting by Boeing and Airbus on their respective competing models - B737-600 and A-318.


Overall, my gut feel is the Bombardier CSeries jet will be a success.