{"id":459,"date":"2016-02-15T14:51:33","date_gmt":"2016-02-15T20:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=459"},"modified":"2016-02-18T12:22:17","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T18:22:17","slug":"westjet-deals-another-blow-bombardier-c-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=459","title":{"rendered":"WestJet deals another blow to Bombardier C Series"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier has been dealt another blow in the company&#8217;s search for orders of its new C Series aircraft family. Canada&#8217;s WestJet has stated that it does not see a fit for the airplane in its current fleet plans. The new C Series airplane has a seating capacity range of between 100 and 150 seats. WestJet reports that this\u00a0size aircraft is\u00a0too small for its\u00a0main\u00a0route\u00a0services going forward, and too big for its regional routes. WestJet is currently focusing on utilizing 168 seat Boeing 737-800 aircraft for its main service routes, and has\u00a025 of the new\u00a0Boeing 737 Max 7, and 40\u00a0of the\u00a0737 Max 8 airplanes currently on order. For its regional feeder network, WestJet does operate\u00a0Bombardier&#8217;s Q400 turboprop aircraft. The airline does\u00a0operate some smaller jet aircraft, but it&#8217;s looking to offload these airplanes going forward. The airline recently announced that it sold 10 of its smaller Boeing\u00a0737 series 700 airplanes to Southwest Airlines, as part of its strategy to move away from the smaller 130 seat models.<\/p>\n<p>In other\u00a0WestJet news, the airline\u00a0has also stated that it&#8217;s seeking to\u00a0slow down the scheduled\u00a0deliveries of its\u00a0Bombardier Q400 turboprops\u00a0it has on order. The giant drop in oil prices has had a devastating effect on the economy of the Canadian province of Alberta, and has resulted in dropping passenger traffic numbers in the effected areas.\u00a0WestJet also stated it&#8217;s in discussions with the Boeing Company to possibly\u00a0defer delivery of 3\u00a0new 737 airplanes, and has plans to return 9\u00a0leased aircraft to their owners in the next 2 years.<\/p>\n<p>Bombardier currently has 243 firm orders for the C Series aircraft, with the programs cost $2 billion over its original budget of $3.4-billion. The Quebec government recently\u00a0stepped in to help shore up Bombardier&#8217;s balance sheet, with a $1 billion US financial contribution to\u00a0the program.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-462\" src=\"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/westjet-q400-300x113.jpg\" alt=\"westjet-q400\" width=\"637\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/westjet-q400-300x113.jpg 300w, https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/westjet-q400-768x290.jpg 768w, https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/westjet-q400-1024x387.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/westjet-q400.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 637px) 100vw, 637px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier has been dealt another blow in the company&#8217;s search for orders of its new C Series aircraft family. Canada&#8217;s WestJet has stated that it does not see a fit for the airplane in its current fleet plans. The new C Series airplane has a seating capacity range of between 100 and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[67,52,77,54,76],"class_list":["post-459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation-news","tag-aviation-news","tag-bombardier","tag-c-series","tag-cseries","tag-westjet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=459"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions\/464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}