Bombardier vice-president of commercial operations Ross Mitchell vowed on 1 March that orders coming in the next 12 months for the CSeries aircraft family will lift any doubts about the future of the programme.
"The orders are coming, I have no doubt," said Mitchell in response to a question from the audience at the ISTAT Americas conference in Phoenix. "Next year at this time, it will be a different discussion because we will have delivered on those orders, and there won't be any doubt."
Participating in a panel discussion, Mitchell fielded a question from an audience member who suggested that Republic Airways' recently-declared bankruptcy puts that carrier's 40-aircraft CSeries order at risk. The questioner also described the recent Air Canada commitment to buy 45 CSeries aircraft as a "letter of intent".
Mitchell replied: "It's interesting to me that we can sell 45 firm airplanes to Air Canada and we still get questions about what we need to do further. Ultimately, it's about orders. It's really about us getting the airplane out and showing it to people, and we're doing that now."
Air Canada committed to sign a firm order for 45 aircraft, but has at least two years to finalise the deal, with a planned delivery date in 2019.
Mitchell also bristled at the questioner's suggestion that Bombardier needs another sale with a non-Canadian, marquee airline.
"Air Canada made a commercial decision based on the merits of our airplane," Mitchell says. "And to ascribe any other cause is not correct."
Source: Cirium Dashboard
