Bombardier Inc. has announced the sale of its Canadair Regional Jet aircraft programme to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) on Tuesday. Production of the aircraft type will end in 2020.
Mitsubishi will take over all assets connected to the CRJ sale, production, maintenance and services. This will also include the type certificate of the aircraft family, along with its support network located in Montréal and Toronto, and its service centres located in Bridgeport, West Virginia, and Tucson, Arizona.
The deal is valued at US $750 million in total, of which MHI will pay US $550 million in cash upon closing of the deal with Bombardier Inc. in the first half of 2020, along with assuming debt amounting to approximately US $200 million.
Mitsubishi is pushing hard to get into the commercial aviation business. The Japanese company is in the process of getting its newly developed M90 ‘Spacejet’ regional jet on the market.
The production of the CRJ aircraft family is expected to end in the second half of 2020, once the backlog of orders for the aircraft have been delivered. Its facility in Mirabel, Canada will remain with Bombardier and continues to supply components and spare parts, even after the conclusion of CRJ production.
Alain Bellemare, President and Chief Executive Officer, Bombardier Inc. says he is confident “that MHI’s acquisition of the program is the best solution for airline customers, employees and shareholders.”
He continues that Bombardier Inc. has now finished its ‘aviation transformation’ and will focus on its rail business Bombardier Transportation and Bombardier Aviation, which builds business jets.
In November last year, Bombardier already sold its Dash 8 turboprop aircraft programme to Canadian Longview Aviation Capital Corp. The CSeries aircraft family was acquired by Airbus in 2017.
Jakob Wert is an aviation journalist from Germany. He built up the website IFN.news and is the Editor-In-Chief of International Flight Network.
