MONTREAL — Just after the first passenger flight of the CSeries in North America and before the handover of the first CS100 to launch customer SWISS, Airways was invited to a brief tour at the jetliner’s Final Assembly Line (FAL) located in Mirabel.
Antonio Ficca, Manager, Product Marketing, Bombardier Commercial Aircraft, took us along the premises, which are dedicated to the assembly of the CSeries. The parts of the aircraft come from different sources. The wings are manufactured at Bombardier’s Belfast production plant, while the aft fuselage and cockpit are built in Bombardier’s Saint-Laurent Manufacturing Center in Quebec, Canada. The main central section of the fuselage is built by Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC), a subsidiary of the state-owned aviation industrial entity China Aviation Industry Corporation (AVIC).
The first eight aircraft (seven flight test vehicles plus the first production aircraft) were assembled in a temporary Final Assembly Line. The first aircraft to roll out from the new FAL will be a CS100, which will also be delivered to SWISS in July. At this time, other six CSeries are being assembled, including the first production CS300 aircraft, which will be delivered to AirBaltic later this year.
The Final Assembly Line is currently working five days a week with three 8-hour shifts. Bombardier employes 1,200 people on the site, dedicated exclusively to the production of the CSeries. The FAL, which went into full production last January, accommodates nine aircraft. Most of the aircraft on the line are the CS300 variant, which to date accounts for two-thirds of Bombardier’s order book.
Bombardier remains committed to its plans to increase the production rate progressively, from 15 to 18 aircraft this year to up to 55 aircraft in 2018, 85 in 2019 and to 120 aircraft in 2020.