Bombardier Aerospace (Montreal) has announced Al Qahtani Aviation Company (Dammam) has signed a firm purchase agreement for 16 CS300 aircraft with options for an additional 10 CS300 jetliners. The aircraft will be operated by SaudiGulf Airlines, a newly launched national carrier from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Al Qahtani Aviation Company and SaudiGulf Airlines are both owned by Saudi Abdel Hadi Abdullah Al-Qahtani & Sons Group of Companies (Tariq Al-Qahtani and Brothers).

In other news, Bombardier Aerospace has confirmed its CSeries aircraft program is making solid progress and initial performance results are in line with the company’s expectations. However, based on the thorough review of the CSeries program after the first flight of the CS100 on September 16, 2013, the flight test phase will require more time than originally anticipated to ensure, amongst other things, that the aircraft has the overall system maturity to support a successful entry-into-service. The CS100aircraft’s entry-into-service is now scheduled for the second half of 2015 and will be followed by the CS300 aircraft’s entry-into-service approximately six months afterwards.

“We are taking the required time to ensure a flawless entry-into-service. We are very pleased that no major design changes have been identified, this gives us confidence that we will meet our performance targets,” said Mike Arcamone, President, Bombardier Commercial Aircraft. “While the process has taken more time than we had expected, our suppliers are aligned with the program’s schedule and together, we will continue to work closely to move the program steadily forward. With the first flight of flight test vehicle 2 (FTV2) successfully completed on January 3, 2014, the CSeries aircraft program will continue to gain traction over the coming months.”

Image and Photo: Bombardier.