Bombardier: New jet, more jobs still on track

WICHITA, Kan. - Bombardier Aerospace said Wednesday that plans for its new Learjet 85 assembly line and the added Wichita jobs that come with it are still on track, despite the financial crisis.

That is good news for a city shaken by back-to-back announcements earlier this week of labor cutbacks by two other business jet manufacturers.

On Monday, Hawker Beechcraft told employees it would cut nearly 500 jobs, or 5 percent of its work force. The next day Cessna Aircraft said it also planned unspecified production and work force reductions.

Bombardier spokesman Leo Knaapen said the company is hiring between 500 and 700 people to work at the Wichita plant on Learjet 85.

The company will be putting in its Learjet 85 assembly line at the same time it is meeting strong market demands for its Learjet 60, Learjet 45 and Learjet 40 planes, Knaapen said.

"We are going to have to be growing our work force," he said. "The Learjet 85 is going to generate more employment in Wichita at our site and we are in the process of recruiting the personnel we need to make sure we deliver the product."

Some engineering jobs for the Learjet 85 already have been filled, and assembly line jobs will be added within the next two years, Knaapen said. The company plans to begin making changes at the Wichita plant next year to accommodate the new line.

"This is a pretty exciting time. This is pretty much a growth time for us," Knaapen said. "We have the Learjet 85, which is now deep into detail design. We are at a point at Learjet where we now have four aircraft either in design or production. That has never happened before ... in the 45 to 46 year history of Learjet in Wichita."

Knaapen says the company has a solid backlog and significant new orders.

Bombardier employs 28,000 people worldwide, including 2,800 employees and 300 contract workers at its Wichita plant. The company had 2,300 employees at the start of the year.

The anticipated layoffs at rivals Cessna and Hawker Beechcraft are coming as the financial crisis hits business jet manufacturers. But Bombardier was more upbeat about its own prospects.

"The fact is that Bombardier Learjet has been more of an internationally focused company than either Cessna or Hawker," Knaapen said.

Hawker Beechcraft warned its employees last month that it had to act to ensure it was prepared for a "very challenging period" during the turmoil in world financial markets. The company is highly leveraged, carrying nearly $2.4 billion in debt.

In March 2007, Raytheon Co. sold its aircraft unit to Hawker Beechcraft, the company formed by an affiliate of Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Toronto-based private-equity firm Onex Partners LP.

Cessna Aircraft, a unit of Textron Inc., also this week blamed its financial problems on the global credit meltdown. It noted slowing orders for jet and piston aircraft, declining daily aircraft utilization across the global fleet, and rising used aircraft inventories.

Despite its outward optimism, Bombardier cautioned it must be flexible as the financial situation evolved.

"We are very conscious obviously of the financial crisis and we look at it very closely every day. We are monitoring the situation really closely," Knaapen said.

"We can't fully predict the impact of the financial crisis, and there are still quite a few elements unknown to us or to anyone else," he said. "But at this time, we are certainly not predicting or projecting any layoffs in Wichita."

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On the Net:

Bombardier Aerospace: http://www.bombardier.com/en/corporate

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