Aircraft Industry: A New Jet From Canada Takes on Boeing and Airbus, Very (Very) Slowly - by Justin Bachman

Canadian CSeries Bombardier challenging Airbus and Boeing

Bombardier’s (BBD/B:CN) long slog to field a rival to the popular narow-body airplanes from Boeing (BA) and Airbus (EAD:FP) has claimed a casualty: its sales chief. Chet Fuller, the former GE Aviation (GE) executive and U.S. Navy pilot tasked with finding buyers for the new CSeries jet, will leave the company “to pursue other career opportunities,” Bombardier said on Tuesday.

The CSeries has collected 182 firm orders, and the company has said it will have booked 300 by September, the tentative date for the airplane’s entry into commercial service. The latest purchase came today, when Iraqi Airways committed to buying five CSeries jets with options for 11 more.

The CSeries is an audacious gambit by Bombardier to muscle into the market for medium-size jets such as Boeing’s 737 and Airbus’s 320 families. Those planes have become the workhorses of global airline fleets, with 140 to 190 seats and ranges of around 3,000 miles. The CSeries will have seating for 149 people in its larger version. “Look, Airbus and Boeing have had this space to themselves for two decades,” Fuller told Bloomberg News in February 2011. “You know what? The world deserves choice.”

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