Macquarie orders 40 CSeries jets from Bombardier

[MONTREAL] Bombardier Inc's CSeries jet, the new model running late and over budget, won a boost from the leasing arm of Australia's Macquarie Group Ltd with a firm order for 40 planes.

The purchase announced on Friday, valued at US$2.9 billion at list prices, is a boon for the programme after Sweden's Braathens Aviation AB last month backed out of being the launch operator and an engine fire halted flight trials for more than three months. Macquarie AirFinance's transaction ties for the largest yet for the CSeries, Bombardier's biggest ever aircraft.

The deal with Macquarie "underscores the importance of the CSeries programme's return to flight testing," Benoit Poirier, an analyst at Desjardins Capital Markets in Montreal, said in a note to clients. The flight hours logged by the CSeries prototype "continue to provide performance data that will help set the aircraft's official specifications".