The Dollar’s Potential Impact On Bombardier CSeries

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Canada’s Bombardier is weighing customer interest in a planned 110- to 130-seat airliner, and considering the financial influences that could see the final assembly of the CSeries take place in America. Global economic factors that currently have the Canadian dollar and U.S. dollar as near equals could lead the company to consider building a new plant in the United States, said Bombardier Aerospace President Pierre Beaudoin. The move could involve creation of as many as 2,500 jobs. First, however, Bombardier is seeking firm orders before making a formal decision to move forward with the fly-by-wire, largely composite aircraft that aims for a 20-percent increase in fuel efficiency over current, similar-capacity aircraft. With demonstrated interest, the company would expect to launch the CSeries program this year and bring the aircraft into service by 2013. … And Bombardier may still decide to do final assembly in Quebec, wing work in Northern Ireland and other manufacturing in Mexico. Bombardier has invested $145 million to research feasibility of the CSeries and believes neither Airbus nor Boeing has expressed interest in developing similar aircraft anytime soon.

The development costs are currently projected at $2.5 billion with an overall cost of roughly $3.2 billion to include facilities and tooling. Bombardier would seek to split that cost between governments, suppliers and Bombardier, itself. The company would hope to produce up to 230 CSeries aircraft per year with a list price of over $40 million per copy.

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