The Press in London | Mirabel in the heart of Farnborough

(London) The big news from this year’s Farnborough International Air Show will be revealed this Tuesday in Mirabel by the Minister of Economic Development, Pierre Fitzgibbon, who will confirm that Quebec is reinjecting new capital into the joint venture with Airbus to ensure the sustainability of the development of the A220.

We wondered why Minister Fitzgibbon had decided not to participate in the show, he who has been the most fervent promoter of the Quebec aerospace cluster since he became Minister of Economic Development.

For years, Pierre Fitzgibbon has formed a duo that is as perfect as it is improbable with his federal counterpart, François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, a duo that no one would have hesitated to call the “Dynamic Duo” of Quebec aeronautics.

Mr. Fitzgibbon is not in London this week, nor is Investissement Québec (IQ) president Bicha Ngo or IQ international vice-president Hubert Bolduc. They are all in Mirabel to announce a third injection of capital into the limited partnership that Québec formed with Airbus in the A220 program, which is still struggling to reach the threshold of profitability.

François-Philippe Champagne is not scandalized by this new call for public aid from Airbus, especially since Quebec acts as a shareholder and does not intervene in a discretionary manner through subsidies.

“Quebec is a shareholder in the joint venture, it is not government aid, it is an investment in a development program for a new aircraft that is experiencing cost overruns like all the programs that have been launched in recent years,” contextualizes François-Philippe Champagne, met Monday evening at the Canadian High Commission in London, as part of the Air Show.

The federal minister reiterated his disappointment with the sale of landing gear manufacturer Héroux-Devtek to the American investment fund Platinum Equity, saying that it is heartbreaking to see a “Quebec and Canadian world champion” pass into foreign hands.

“I met briefly with the leaders of Héroux-Devtek, and I plan to speak to them soon. I do not want to say any more because the transaction will have to receive approval from the Canadian Investment Act,” Minister Champagne was keen to clarify.

Bombardier Defense’s offensive in London

Aerial surveillance and anti-submarine warfare applications that transform Global and Challenger business jets into real spy planes are generating interest at the Farnborough Air Show, where the Bombardier Defence division group plans to hold more than 75 business meetings between now and Thursday.

In addition to occupying a chalet on the edge of the tarmac at Farnborough Airport, where the sales and specialist teams of the Montreal-based business jet manufacturer hold meetings every 30 minutes, the company also has a kiosk in one of the exhibition halls at the Air Show, where meetings are also held.

My meeting at the Bombardier Defense chalet with Anne-Marie Thibaudeau, Director, Customer Acquisition and Proposal Management, takes place just after the visit of the American army’s order givers, those who are authorized to place orders with suppliers.

“We are already involved with the US Air Force, but we are also involved with the US Army, which really likes our Global 6500. We will soon be participating in a call for tenders for an airborne early warning project [Airborne early warning] which will involve the acquisition of 14 detection devices,” Anne-Marie Thibaudeau explains to me.

An electrical engineer by training and holder of a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering, M^me Thibaudeau joined Bombardier Business Jets in 2008 to work on the Challenger and Global families of aircraft before moving to the Specialized Aircraft team in 2017.

“We changed the name of the division two years ago to Bombardier Defense to better reflect what we are increasingly doing, which is modifying aircraft so that they can carry out military missions,” explains the specialist.

Of the 5,000 Bombardier jets in operation worldwide – Learjet, Challenger and Global – 500 have been modified to perform specific missions and increasingly to serve as radar planes.

“We still sell jets to governments that use them to transport high-ranking officers or military missions, but who also use them for missions to transport wounded civilians,” adds Anne-Marie Thibaudeau.

Bombardier Defence’s largest customers are the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, German Air Force and the United Arab Emirates. Canada last year preferred to give Boeing the contract to build 16 maritime surveillance aircraft to replace its aging fleet rather than issue a call for tenders in which Bombardier could have submitted a bid.

By next year, Ottawa must decide on an order for 14 surveillance aircraft to detect airborne early warnings. Bombardier Defence will be in the running with two types of modified aircraft, one with the equipment supplier SAAB and the other with L3H.

“We hope that there will be a call for tenders and we will be well placed to win it. We are also participating in a similar call for tenders that South Korea has launched, with the same two partners,” says Anne-Marie Thibaudeau.

Without a doubt, the particularly tense geopolitical context of recent years has brought to the forefront for many countries the importance of having a defence system adequately adapted to the realities of today and especially to those of tomorrow, which remain surrounded by uncertainty.