Company Watch - Bombardier.

For more company news, data and analysis, please go to: http://www.airguideonline.com/professional.htm Aug 28, 2006

Bombardier has delivered 1,360 regional jets since spearheading the development of the CRJ format in 1992. Over that time, it has delivered 226 units of the original CRJ-100 50-seat model and 709 of the comparable CRJ-200. The Montreal-based manufacturer, which also makes business jets and has manufacturing facilities in the United States and Belfast, Northern Ireland, also makes 70-seat and 90-seat regional jets and turboprop aircraft. Aug 27, 2006

Lufthansa CityLine took delivery yesterday of an 84-seat CRJ900, the first of a dozen that will come into the fleet this year. They will be replacing 50-seat CRJs as the company continues reconfiguring its fleet. "With the new aircraft model, Lufthansa CityLine is taking a major step forward economically and technologically and is thus ideally prepared to face up to the future competition," MD Thomas Drager said. First destinations for the new type include Munich, Brussels, Lyon, Munster/Osnabruck, Nice, Oslo and Geneva. In 2005, CityLine carried some 6.5 million passengers with its fleet of 80 regional jets. Aug 23, 2006

Bombardier said it had not yet been provided with a tail number for the aircraft involved in the fatal accident. Bombardier would not speculate on the cause of the crash but said it would be cooperating with the US Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board. The Kentucky crash appears to be the second-worst in terms of fatalities involving a Bombardier regional jet. In November 2004, 47 passengers and six crew members died in the crash of a Bombardier regional jet flown by China Eastern Airlines in Baotou, in China's northern Inner Mongolia region. One person was killed on the ground. Aug 27, 2006

Bombardier, the Canadian aircraft manufacturer, said the 50-seat CRJ-100 regional jet in Sunday's crash in Lexington, Kentucky, was delivered new to Comair in 2001. Bombardier, the world's third-largest civil aircraft maker, said the plane that crashed was acquired new in January 2001 and was delivered January 30 of that year to Comair, a regional carrier operated by Delta Air Lines, and had a clean maintenance record, Bornhorst said. The aircraft had performed 12,048 takeoff and landing "cycles," he said. The crew was well rested and the weather did not appear to be a factor, he said. The plane's flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder were both recovered, according to media reports. Aug 27, 2006

Kentucky Plane Crash - 49 Dead. A small airliner carrying at least 50 people crashed and burst into flames on Sunday shortly after taking off from Lexington's Blue Grass Airport, killing all but one on board, officials said. The plane was carrying 47 passengers and a three person crew but may also have been carrying an off-duty crew member. It was not immediately clear what caused the crash of Comair Flight 5191, which was bound for Atlanta, though visibility was good and it was not raining at the time, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said. Local media said the plane, a Bombardier Canadair CRJ-100 jet that seats 52 passengers, may have departed from a runway that was too short -- half the length of the airport's longest 7,000-foot runway. There was no indication that terrorism was involved, a US Transportation Security Administration official said. One man survived and was in critical condition, a University of Kentucky Hospital spokesman said. It was not immediately known if the survivor was a passenger or a crew member. The local coroner, Gary Ginn, said the fire burned "very hot." All the bodies had been removed, he said. A Federal Aviation Administration official said the plane crashed in a farm field in rugged terrain and the fuselage was largely intact. The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the crash investigation. Flights resumed at Lexington's 64-year-old airport, which serves half a dozen carriers, about four hours after the crash. Kentucky officials were on hand at a staging area at the adjacent Keeneland Race Course trying to determine if state workers might have been on board the flight. Aug 27, 2006