With Airbus selling its stake in Dassault Aviation, now down to less than 24% from 46%, and soon nil, Dassault has more leeway in entering cooperation with other companies.
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| Rafale-M from Charles de Gaulle carrier |
Bombardier Aerospace on the other hand is having problems in getting its new CSeries airliners into commercial passenger service though its flight testing is now on track and showing good performance from the airliners.
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| Bombardier CS300 first flight |
Both Dassault and Bombardier are not the top tier companies in the aircraft sectors they compete in, except for Bombardier in business jets. Their relative lower market positions may make cooperation between them attractive in order to survive and grow.
The best reason for them to cooperate may be that both are Francophones with Dassault based in France, and Bombardier based in Quebec, the French speaking and influenced part of Canada.
Another possible prospect for cooperation is if the Royal Canadian Air Force selects the excellent Rafale fighter to replace its present FA-18A/B’s.
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| Rafale F3 with Reco-NG, MICAs, DA |
Dassault has no airliner product and with Airbus divesting its interests, the Bombardier CSeries may present opportunities to Dassault in marketing, production, support, etc. It can give Dassault more competitive advantage vis-à-vis Airbus in the European scene.
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| Bombardier CSeries 1st flight landing |
As for the business jet sector, it will be better for them to make their bizjet lines separate for now but cooperate in R&D, design and production. For the future, they may coordinate their capacity/range spectrum.
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| Falcon business jets |
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| Bombardier business jets at EBACE 2014 |
With China, Brazil, Russia, India, South Korea and even Indonesia getting more competitive in the aerospace industry, cooperation between these two Francophone companies may insure their survival and growth in the future.
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| BritAir CRJ-1000NG Strasbourg 21jan2011 F-HMLC (cn 19006) |
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