ightglobal.com 22-28 May 2018 | Flight International | 37

BUSINESS AVIATION

Bombardier Global 7000

STEPHEN TRIMBLE LOS ANGELES

Bombardier

Smooth operator

Bombardier’s new flagship vies for leadership of an emerging class of ultra-long-range

jets for which cabin noise, comfort and ride quality are critical performance features

A

Global 7000 does not look out of
place on the lawn of the Beverly
Hills Hilton at the Milken Insti-
tute’s annual global conference, a
$50,000-a-ticket venue for the world’s rich
and powerful. It is the kind of event where
you see US Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin chatting up a group of seated bank-
ers at the coffee bar in the lobby.
So Bombardier brought the 33.9m (111ft)-
long cabin mock-up of its $75 million busi-
ness jet to the 2016 conference, allowing a
host of potential future customers an up-close
look at the aircraft long before its scheduled
entry into service later this year.
Last year, a mock-up of the smaller Chal-
lenger 350 adorned the conference’s entrance.
This year, with the Global 7000’s first delivery
drawing nearer, Bombardier returned to the
Hilton. But instead of bringing a mock-up of
its new flagship, Bombardier chose to show-
case its latest entry in a product category that

is becoming a major marketing focus across

the business jet industry. As Brad Nolen,

Bombardier’s vice-president of marketing,

puts it: “You’ll find that we’ll have more real

owners today at Milken than even at NBAA

or EBACE, so it’s the perfect place to launch a

new aircraft seat.”

COMFORT OFFERING

The new seat unveiled on the sidelines of the

conference on 29 April is branded Nuage, the

French word for cloud. As a marketing term,

it sounds as if Bombardier is entering the re-

mote data storage business, but in this case it

is a reference to the floating, visible mass of

tiny liquid droplets – and the intent is to

evoke the cloud’s airy weightlessness.

“We’re really pleased with the result. The

comfort we’ll be able to deliver to our customers

is amazing,” says Tim Fagan, manager of indus-

trial design for Bombardier Business Aircraft.

Some customers, such as former Formula

One driver Niki Lauda, have been waiting for

that experience for a long time. Bombardier

launched the Global 7000 at the NBAA con-

vention in Atlanta in 2010. Entry into service

was originally scheduled for 2016, but that

was before the company’s CSeries pro-

gramme fell more than two years behind

schedule. In 2015, it announced that the new

model would enter service in 2018.

Three years after that announcement, Bom-

bardier has logged 1,800 flight hours on four

test aircraft since achieving first flight in No-

vember 2016. The programme remains on

track to obtain airworthiness certification

later this year, with the first production air-

craft delivered to a production customer be-

fore 2019 begins.

“The certification is progressing extremely

well. We’re really entering the final phase be-

fore final [certification],” says chief executive

Alain Bellemare, speaking to analysts on a

first-quarter earnings call on 3 May.

As the flagship of Bombardier Business

Aircraft, the Global 7000 has played a signifi-

cant role in the company’s corporate strategy

since it was unveiled eight years ago. But the ❯❯

Global 7000 is capable of flying from

Hong Kong to New York non-stop