Bombardier has a new launch customer for its CSeries commercial jet. The company has not identified who the new customer is though.
“It (the client) doesn’t want to be identified,” said Bombardier spokeswoman Marianella de la Barrera. “We leave it up to the discretion of our customer to tell us when they are ready to be disclosed.”
The CSeries CS100, which will compete with the Boeing 737 series and the Airbus A320 family, is expected to enter service towards the second half of next year. The much larger CS300 will enter service six months after.
The CS100 prototype at Mirabel on its first flight.
Earlier this year, in August, Braathens Aviation announced that it would not be the CSeries’s first customer because of a engine failure during ground maintenance testing. In 2011 the company had ordered five CS100s and five CS300s valued at US$665 million, in addition to options on 10 planes.
There is some risk being the launch customer but de la Barrera said that the amount of flight testing has reduced any doubts.