With the turboprop market rebounding strongly, regional airliner demand is equally strong across both sectors - prop and jet - and the result is a vindication for Bombardier's diversified product strategy, with the Canadian company emerging as the top regional airframer in overall orders last year.
Bombardier started the regional jet revolution in the 1990s with the 50-seat Canadair CRJ, but the ensuing boom all but obliterated the turboprop market. However, the airframer kept faith with its Dash 8 turboprop through the dark days at the turn of the decade, from which only ATR emerged as an all-turboprop builder.
This diversified policy may have been an accident of birth - Bombardier's regional aircraft division was created as the small-jet market emerged, through the takeover of Canadair and de Havilland Canada (which had just invented the "Dash 8-400"), so it would have been extremely destructive to a cordial merger if the Dash 8 had been abandoned.
But that is history, and this split product strategy is paying off, with the turboprop recovery offseting the demise of 50-seat jet sales. But Bombardier's regional lines cannot remain competitive in the long term without significant investment. And it would be brave - perhaps foolish - to squander all its funds in one sector - the 110-130 seat mainline jet market - with its CSeries, having proved the worth of diversification.
Source: Flight International
