Bombardier has opened its tenth regional support office outside North America at the TAG Farnborough Airport terminal.
The Farnborough regional support office (RSO) is located with the Bombardier business aircraft international sales office, alongside the company’s Authorised Service Facility, TAG Farnborough Engineering.
It will anchor regional support capabilities for the growing number of Bombardier business aircraft customers in Europe, with Farnborough being selected over Luton due to the higher level of flight traffic there.
The office will also help coordinate efforts of the company’s mobile response team, which is based throughout Europe.
“Centralizing our technical expertise and operations support in Farnborough will significantly bolster our response times for our European customer base,” said Andy Nureddin, vice president for customer services and support at Bombardier Business Aircraft.
Bombardier’s regional support office strategy responds to the growing international business aircraft market and customer requirements. The aircraft manufacturer is set to open three new RSOs in Mexico, Moscow and South Africa.
Gary Martin, vice president of customer services at Bombardier stated that the firm are increasing their servicing programmes around the world as “a more global presence fuels value-added business in the lucrative parts, training, and maintenance market.”
The growth in the number of Bombardier’s regional support offices will support its smart services sales contracts, which charges a monthly fee for aircraft based on flight hours.
Servitisation in the sector is proving profitable, while taking on a proportion of the risks from the airlines. However, sales contracts such as this means that aircraft problems will result in a loss of income, fuelling the need for Bombardier to ramp up its service support.
Eric Martel, president of customer services at Bombardier, commented: “We need to deliver parts quicker to allow airlines to focus on their core business.”
Bombardier announced that Candian airline Jazz Aviation, which operates flights on behalf of Air Canada, has enrolled on its Q400 Smart Parts cost protection programme, which manages operational and parts maintenance costs.
The nine-year agreement will be tailored to the airline’s need for its fleet of Q400 NextGen turboprop airliners.
“Today more than ever airlines need full control over their operational budgets,” said Mr Martin.
“The Smart Parts programme gives us a leg up by allowing us to introduce a new aircraft type to our fleet without the typical capital outlay for spare parts inventory acquisition and warehousing,” said Richard Steer, vice president for maintenance and engineering at Jazz.
“We will be able to predict our component manufacturing costs per flight hour over the next nine years.”
