Philippe Poutissou, vice-president of commercial aircraft at Bombardier, cautions against looking at blanket figures and says a better measure of who’s on top is to consider where the demand is.

“If you look at the U.S. market overall at the 70- to 90-seat category, which is where the opportunity lies, the CRJ has outsold the E-Jet two to one, if you are specifically looking at the CRJ700 and CRJ900,” he said in a recent interview.

But for Richard Aboulafia, a senior analyst with the Fairfax, Virginia-based Teal Group, Bombardier has a narrow window for selling more ambitiously before the re-engined E-Jet and Mitsubishi’s new jet take off.

“They need to work hard to keep the Delta order from being a dead-cat bounce,” Aboulafia said.