GARY SCOTT, PRESIDENT, NEW COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT PROGRAM, BOMBARDIER
AEROSPACE
Bombardier Tackling a Niche with a Need
Bombardier Aerospace is to decide during the first quarter of 2005
whether to build a new family of jets, its largest jets ever, to
fill a market niche between present-day regional aircraft and the
smaller offerings of Airbus and Boeing.
More than half of an expected 300-strong engineering team is in
place in Montreal, and a former Boeing 737 boss has been hired.
"I know that there's a need," says Gary Scott, who was named president
of Bombardier's New Commercial Aircraft Program (NCAP) early this
year. The Canadian airframer, the world's third largest, is targeting
the 100- to 150-seat market, "which is a $250 billion market over
the next 20 years, with a need for about 6,000 airplanes," Scott
says.
"It's being served today with mostly out-of-production aircraft,"
he adds, including DC-9s, Fokker 100s, MD-80s and older 737s.
Larger versions of the still-unnamed Bombardier craft will seat
as many as 135—competing head-to-head with Airbus and Boeing.
Versions with transcontinental range would quite literally leave
competition from Embraer behind, while operating economics are to
be far better than airliners from The Big Two.
Scott says he expects to beat the modern competition's operating
costs by 15% and existing legacy jets by 20%.
Bucking Boeing?
No, nor Airbus, says Gary Scott, president of the New Commercial
Aircraft Program at Bombardier. "Boeing and Airbus," he notes,
"concentrate on the 87% of the market that we don't focus
on."
"They are structured to build large airplanes," Scott told
Show News. "We're looking at that space that's underneath
Airbus and Boeing."
Bombardier's not even challenging arch regional jet rival
Embraer, Scott insists. "They're trying to address the very
low end of the 100- to 150-seat market," he says. For the
significant niche targeted by Bombardier, "their products
don't have the range."
He told Show News that Bombardier sees a family of four
new jets, with short range and transcontinental versions of a 110-
to 115-seat and a 130- to 135-seat aircraft. They will share a common
wing.
Scott downplays the extensive use of composites, saying that the
super-lightweight structural materials are more critical to major
efficiency gains on a large airliner like the Boeing 7E7 than they
are on Bombardier's NCAP. "New technologies will have to pay their
way," he insists.
Bombardier expects to reap much of its efficiency gains from a
new class of engine to be developed specifically for NCAP. All three
major manufacturers and IAE are eager to participate, Scott claims,
as they agree with Bombardier's assessment of a market need. Engine
power is expected to range from 18,500- to 19,000-pounds-thrust
for the small and 24,000- to 25,000-pounds-thrust for the large
NCAP variants.
Scott pegs the cost of the NCAP development program at about €1.62
billion (US$2 billion), and says Bombardier expects to fund about
a third of it, with another third coming from government and the
rest from suppliers, who will be expected to assume risk and take
design responsibility. Discussions are underway with about 100 candidate
companies, he reports.
Contrary to reports and speculation, some based on Scott's own
30-year background with Boeing, he says flatly that Bombardier is
planning no partnership with the American company on the new airplane,
nor is it buying engineering services or composites know-how from
Boeing.
As an organizational entity, NCAP is separate from Bombardier's
business jet and regional jet units, with Scott reporting directly
to Bombardier Aerospace president and COO Pierre Beaudoin.
Assuming a first-quarter nod from the Bombardier board, and a launch
customer signed by mid-year, "We would deliver the first airplane
no later than 2010," Scott says. Bombardier Aerospace is in Chalet
C1-3.
