Bombardier delivers 180 business jets in 2013

Bombardier Challenger 605 parked on apron

Bombardier Aerospace announces deliveries totaling 238 aircraft, including 180 business aircraft during 2013.

Bombardier Challenger 605 parked on apron

Bombardier Aerospace has announced that it delivered 180 business jets in 2013 – a total of 238 aircraft – compared to 179 in 2012. This figure consists of 29 Learjets, 89 Challengers and 62 Global business jets.

“The global economy has remained persistently sluggish and with its recovery taking longer than originally anticipated, 2013 continued to be a challenging year for aviation,” said Guy Hachey, president and chief operating officer of Bombardier Aerospace. “Despite this difficult environment, we put in a solid performance overall. We had a successful order intake that included firm orders from a broad base of customers located in both traditional and emerging markets. A few of these included Flexjet LLC, VistaJet, American Airlines, the Ilyushin Finance Co. (IFC) of Russia and Iraqi Airways.”

“Bombardier’s strategy of geographic diversification in targeted countries continued to gain momentum in 2013,” added Hachey. “Our focus to expand our products’ presence in growing international markets yielded results with orders from customers based in Africa, Asia-Pacific, China, the Middle East and Russia. We are encouraged by the volume of orders for both business and commercial aircraft and the resulting strong order backlog. As well, we achieved a significant milestone with the sale of one of our Bombardier 415 amphibious aircraft to a customer in the US.”

The company delivered 10 aircraft less than its annual guidance, which it attributes to the transition from the Learjet  40XR and Learjet 45XR aircraft to the Learjet 70 and Learjet 75 aircraft, both of which entered into service in the fourth quarter of 2013. Bombardier also received 305 net orders for business jets throughout the year, compared to 343 for the previous year.

This news follow Embraer’s recent announcement that it delivered 119 business jets in 2013.