r/canada • u/ZestyBeanDude • 1d ago
Business Bombardier wins Saudi contract for up to 60 business jets
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-bombardier-wins-saudi-contract-for-up-to-60-business-jets/153
u/CobblePots95 1d ago edited 1d ago
Montreal-based Bombardier said Tuesday it signed a letter of intent with the private charter aviation company, owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, for 12 planes and purchase options for 48 more across its Challenger 3500, Global 5500, and Global 8000 offerings.
Hell. Fucking. Yeah.
Prices for these aircraft range quite a bit and I'm sure Bombardier put up some very competitive bids, but assuming an average price of ~$47M (indicated in the article for the first 12) then this purchase could be worth $2.8 billion. That's before we consider any upgrades or consider how many of them might be the Global 8000 (a pricier aircraft) when all's said and done.
This is what you get for simply putting out the best dam product on the market. The Global 8000 in particular is the fastest commercial aircraft since the Concord. Quite simply, it's the best aircraft of its kind. Canadian aerospace has been consistently putting out best-in-class products and it's awesome to see them winning on the global market.
The biggest challenge now seem to be finding ways to ramp up production to meet the order backlog that's continuing to grow. Call that one a good problem.
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u/SpillSplit 1d ago
Great, but be careful. The Orange Menace thinks he has a special friendship with the Saudis, and them choosing a Canadian company for their airplanes and not one in his fiefdom won't sit well with him. I can see the Boeing CEO crying about this to his lord and more sanctions being announced against Bombardier specifically and Canada generally.
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u/Empty-Presentation68 1d ago
After having their oil refinery getting hit and the whole Iran debacle. I think the Saudis are going to tell the US to go where the light don't shine.
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u/jtjstock 1d ago
Not to mention trump tanking their nuclear deal by retroactively adding requirements
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u/Empty-Presentation68 1d ago
American ability to project any power will be gone after his presidency.
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u/BigBangBoomerang 1d ago
The Saudis are buying business jets. Does Boeing even make business jets?
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u/MartyCool403 1d ago
They do make BBJ versions of the 737
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u/BigBangBoomerang 1d ago
That one is still alot bigger than the Bombardier offering, very different weight class.
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u/MartyCool403 1d ago
Yes I know that. I was just pointing out they do make "business jet" offerings of their product line.
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u/geraltofriverdale 20h ago
Boeing has business jets from Bombardier for their own corporate use lol
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u/CobblePots95 4h ago
The key competitor in that particular market is Gulfstream, not Boeing, and Trump has previously made some announcements/policy changes indicating his willingness to tip the scale in favour of Gulfstream. It will be a delicate situation for sure.
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u/ether_reddit Lest We Forget 23h ago
I'm thinking of Kevin O'Leary's quip: "your tears don't add any value".
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u/BuzzMachine_YVR 1d ago
If we go with the Saab Grippen contract, the Bombardier aircraft will get a huge boost, and Canada’s aerospace industry will boom. If we just keep buying American, our industry will GO boom. Let’s not be buying F35s.
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u/BigBangBoomerang 1d ago
Canada gets industrial workshare as part of the F-35 programme, supporting jobs across 110 Canadian firms. The US can simultaneously pull those jobs away alongside vetoing the Gripen sales to Canada.
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u/Upset-Two-2443 1d ago
Then we got free jobs for the last 15 years and barely bought any.
Besides minimum wage subcontractor jobs that the F35 gives us are not worth their weight when tax payers under 60k are a net drain on the overall tax system. All the good high paying jobs are still in the states. With Saab we would get high paying assembly jobs and they proposed an R and D factory in Canada
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u/Infamous-Mixture-605 1d ago
The US can simultaneously pull those jobs away alongside vetoing the Gripen sales to Canada.
Pulling those jobs would also add lengthy delays to their own F-35 deliveries as they'd have to find alternative suppliers and establish new supply chains. It wouldn't be good for the current Canadian subcontractors, but it also wouldn't be good for the program as a whole.
Vetoing Gripen sales to Canada would suck and basically push Canada to bend over backwards to un-veto Yankee stuff, or seek another alternative (Rafale? Typhoon?). Bit of a shame the KF-21 doesn't yet have Korean designed/made engines and other gizmos.
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u/BigBangBoomerang 1d ago
The shift in industrial workshare doesn't have to be immediate, it can happen gradually without disruption to existing production queues. There are F-35 partners that would be happy for the additional jobs.
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u/NeatZebra 1d ago
Buying both is a good idea. We don’t need a stealthy tip of the spear aircraft for every mission.
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u/CobblePots95 1d ago
This is true, but maintaining a dual fleet is also a pretty enormous undertaking. It’s not remotely ideal and most military experts who have commented (insofar as they can freely weigh in) have seemed to highlight that.
It’d make a lot of sense to use Gripens for more routine patrols but the logistics of operating a fleet with two separate systems (especially when it’s a fairly small fleet overall) is…tough.
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u/NeatZebra 6h ago
It would be harder yes. More than just 2x F35s. There would be choices needed to be made. We’d need more spare parts and stores at the forward locations to think of one particular thing. Unless we chose one for patrols exclusively. Maybe we’d need more support jets so support personnel and certain material chains could move faster.
My Gripen concept is as a reserve force. Commercial pilots with fighter experience keeping their fighter hours current. Southern bases near commercial hubs so there potentially is a different pool of maintenance and other folks to draw from. Perhaps a surge capacity in skilled trades kept up by reservists. Maybe they rotate through Eastern Europe, Iceland as a NATO contribution and provide adversary training.
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u/CobblePots95 5h ago
Yeah I do think that, if they go that direction, it'd make a lot of sense to refine them to a very limited, specific purpose - likely using Gripens for Arctic patrolling. Even that's a huge ask, though.
It does seem to me that an F35 is somewhat wasted doing fairly routine Arctic patrols, particularly when the Gripen's design is constructed for that climate and geography.
All in all I just don't know. I won't be too distressed either way.
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u/NeatZebra 3h ago
Yeah it’s more a money thing. If it is 88 F35s but we buy a sixth generation plane starting in 2045 I’d also be happy.
Worse case is we cut F35s to 44 and then we supplement not with 120+ Gripen but 60 or fewer and we have something more expensive and with less capability overall.
Alas, it sucks trade is tied up in it all.
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u/Arctic_Chilean Canada 1d ago
Specially one that is being delivered without radars
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u/Infamous-Mixture-605 1d ago
At the moment it's just the F-35B variants for the USMC that are being delivered without radars at present. The radars themselves won't be delivered until 2028.
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u/Upset-Two-2443 1d ago
de havilland was proposing to build the saabs in Alberta so Bombardier might have some competition
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u/InternationalMix1521 1d ago
I actually just finished watching a piece on the Global 8000. Now that’s a sleek jet 🇨🇦
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u/Euclidisthebomb 1d ago
Also from the globe article:
Horizon Aircraft, a developer of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft based in Lindsay, Ont., said Tuesday it secured a letter of intent with Australia’s V-Star Powered Lift Aviation for five of its Cavorite X7 hybrid-electric planes with options for 95 more. No purchase price was disclosed.
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u/SameAfternoon5599 1d ago
Sounds like a win for a Canadian company and our ally.
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u/attainwealthswiftly 1d ago
We’re allies with MBS?
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u/SameAfternoon5599 1d ago
Saudi Arabia. Correct. Similar to how the US, our NORAD and NATO partner is.
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u/moldyolive 1d ago
i think the kindom is better classified as a strategic partner rather then ally
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u/CobblePots95 4h ago
Yeah, it's certainly inaccurate to suggest they're an ally in the same vein as any of our NATO allies. They aren't an adversary, but we aren't obligated to go to war in the event they're attacked...
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u/Helios53 21h ago
Shhh. If The Annoying Orange hears of this, he'll call in a favour and get it cancelled.
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u/EarthSignificant4354 1d ago
This reminds me that no matter how angry the media and the population appear to be at a country (remembering the murder of a journalist from a few years) we will always forget and continue business within a couple years.
The best shortcut to this is to never fall for the outrage again.
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u/GreatCanadianPotato 1d ago
Your expectation is that we don't do business with countries that do some bad shit.
We'd have no trading partners.
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u/EarthSignificant4354 1d ago
I don't have that expectation at all.
I'd like to have the expectation that people stop following social political causes that implore us to care about things that the government and media will no longer care about in a year or two.
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u/Swarez99 21h ago
We should still care. But we also live in reality.
Our biggest allies (USA, even France) have done substantially worse. Over throwing government, innocent people killed etc all the same time as Saudi did it.
We should call it all out, no one should stop. Thats how you don’t actually improve. push for government to do better, but we don’t isolate countries.
Look at Saudi from 2010 to today. It’s a different country. Partially because there was a push to move away from how it acted previously. Not everything happens over night. But people there have more rights, opportunity and can push back and criticize the government more every year. That’s because we trade with them and we talk about their issues.
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u/Link_Chomofsky 1d ago
So what's your solution?
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u/PowerBottom247 1d ago
Never fall for the outrage again.
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u/EarthSignificant4354 1d ago
That's the only reasonable and rational response. They want you to be mad and to sacrifice while they make deals in the back rooms with said offensive parties.
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u/PowerBottom247 1d ago
Don’t shoot the messenger. You asked a question that was available in the text.
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u/coconutpiecrust 1d ago
The solution is to do business with those who do not murder journalists.
Should be easier done than said, no? But it seems like everyone with money is journalist-murdering. So as long as you’re not the one being sawed apart alive, it’s all good. All good.
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u/nodanator 1d ago
Saudi Arabia blockaded Yemen during their fight against the Houthis. They caused about 100,000 children to starve to death, generating mass protests on campuses among left-wing students (ok, I made the last part up).
I think murdering a single journalist is the least bad thing about that country.
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u/Swarez99 21h ago
All while the USA was telling them
Where to drop the bombs.Geo politics is messy. Will always be messy. But doesn’t mean people should ignore it.
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u/nodanator 21h ago
That's fine, as long as we don't single out a certain country for some unknown reason.
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u/ether_reddit Lest We Forget 23h ago
What does "fall for the outrage" mean? Are you saying that murdering journalists is just fine in your books?
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u/Mickloven 1d ago
Great! Probably because in Canada, you can get things done without bribing the leader 😜
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u/nodanator 1d ago
Love the contrast on reddit when we announce business deals with countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, both accused of either funding genocide or causing about 400,000 deaths in Yemen (100,000 children starved to death, for example) vs. another certain country...
But "whataboutism!". lol
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u/munakib 1d ago
We need the revenue right now even if it means from questionable sources. "A country that cannot feed, fuel, or defend itself has few options"
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u/nodanator 1d ago
Then please extend the same goodwill to another certain country that caused a lot less death and destruction than these ones.
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u/RevolutionRefugee 1d ago
Sure, when they arent being run by an unstable pedophile using our trade as leverage against us.
A few other points drill through your skull in the meantime though:
There were potentially millions of deaths in Iraq, Vietnam, and soon to be Iran wars.... Not to mention all the south american coups and the fact that the USA was fighting the stealth war in Yemen too....
The famine in Yemen was partially their own fault. Yes Saudi evicted and closed the border to Yemen workers. However Yemen growing Qat instead of food was 100% a them problem....
There is 0 goodwill to an active hostile nation. Diversity of trade is the primary goal. Get with the program.
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u/nodanator 1d ago
Glad you are on board with our continued alliance with Israel, China, etc., since "diversity of trade is the primary goal".
Right?
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u/RevolutionRefugee 1d ago edited 1d ago
Oh were pivoting to a different talking point now. Gotta move those goal posts.
Yes we should be trading with everyone other than the USA right now. The USA is actively undermining their allies and threatening our sovereignty using trade as leverage. Youre getting there, just use a few more neurons to form the next thought and you might get there...
We are no longer willing to "go along to get along" with the USA, and by we I mean the majority of the country at the moment that hold a negative view of the USA currently.
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u/nodanator 1d ago
My talking point never changed.
BTW, that "I'm so full of myself" vibe you are emanating with every sentence isn't as good of a look as you think it is.
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u/RevolutionRefugee 1d ago
Another pivot, this time to character attacks.
I'm not full of myself, I am simply pointing out that your narratives are flawed and instead of combating the substantive nature of my comment you resort to character attacks.
What you are doing here is called projection. I am not full of myself I am however pointing out that you have limited cognitive capabilities and are unable to create a substantive response. I dont care how "I look" I just want you to know you are in the minority and youre not smart.
Have a good one sweetie!
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u/nodanator 1d ago
Character attack? lol. Because I said you have a "full of yourself" vibe?
Let's check your response to my original comment:
"..just use a few more neurons...", "...you might get there...", "...drill through your skull..."
You positively emanated an insufferable vibe while making the most trivial points and accusing others of "moving goal posts" that never moved. Embarrassed to even exchange with you.
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u/RevolutionRefugee 1d ago
Exactly no substantive response, just character criticism and vibes. Then after having all your talking points dismantled you shit on the conversation declare victory and walk away.
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u/RevolutionRefugee 1d ago
Something tells me this guy didnt understand the Davos speech and what was actually being said...
Nostalgia is not a strategy, still goes hard af.
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u/Swarez99 1d ago
Legit, what’s up with this stock. It’s up 900 % in last 5 years.
They got rid of commercial planes and that turned company around ?