Bombardier

As of October 2026 – On the general aviation apron in Geneva stands a large, elegant jet with two massive engines at the tail and a long row of oval windows. A few kilometers away, a Swiss A220 taxis to the runway, and somewhere in North America a CRJ900 is just taking off for its next feeder flight. All three share a common origin: Bombardier. The Canadian group made the regional jet popular in Europe, developed today’s A220 and by now builds only business jets. If you know its history, you understand why so many different aircraft share the same family tree.

From snowmobile to aircraft group

Bombardier’s roots lie far from aviation. Joseph-Armand Bombardier founded his company in 1942 in the village of Valcourt in Québec to build tracked vehicles for snowy roads. The company later became known for the Ski-Doo snowmobile. In the 1970s, rail technology was added, starting with trains for the Montreal metro.

The step into aviation followed in 1986: Bombardier bought the state-owned aircraft maker Canadair in Montreal. Then things moved fast. In 1989, the group took over Short Brothers in Belfast, in 1990 Learjet in Wichita and in 1992 de Havilland Canada in Toronto, which had previously belonged to Boeing. Within six years, the vehicle builder had become one of the largest aircraft manufacturers in the world, with business jets, regional jets, turboprops and firefighting aircraft on offer.

The centerpiece of this expansion, however, dated from the Canadair era. In 1976, Canadair had taken over a design by Learjet founder Bill Lear and developed it into the Challenger 600, a business jet with a wide fuselage, rear engines and a T-tail. It first flew on November 8, 1978. This Challenger later gave rise both to the CRJ and, indirectly, to the large Global family – a family tree you can still recognize today in the shapes.

The CRJ: Bombardier’s success in scheduled service

In the late 1980s, airlines were looking for a jet for routes where large aircraft didn’t pay off and propeller aircraft were too slow. Bombardier had an obvious idea: stretch the Challenger and fit it with 50 seats. The Canadair Regional Jet program started in the spring of 1989, and the first prototype flew on May 10, 1991.

The launch customer was a German airline. At the end of October 1992, Lufthansa CityLine took delivery of the first CRJ100 and set a trend: the small jet made direct connections between regional airports and hubs possible that had hardly been economical before. In North America, the CRJ became the backbone of major airlines’ feeder traffic. SkyWest was the launch customer of the improved CRJ200, and regional airlines like Comair made the type big in the US.

From the late 1990s, the stretched generation followed. The CRJ700 entered service with Brit Air in 2001, the CRJ900 found its launch customer in Mesa in 2003, and the CRJ1000 was delivered to Brit Air and Air Nostrum from December 2010. In Germany, Eurowings and later mainly Lufthansa CityLine flew the CRJ900 for many years in Lufthansa regional service.

The end came in stages. In June 2019, Bombardier agreed to sell the CRJ program to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and the closing followed on June 1, 2020. Bombardier still finished the open orders in Mirabel, and the last new CRJ900 went to SkyWest in early 2021. No CRJs have been built since. Maintenance and spare parts for the aircraft that keep flying are handled by the Mitsubishi subsidiary MHI RJ Aviation.

The C Series: How Bombardier’s jet became the Airbus A220

The most ambitious bet in Bombardier’s history was the C Series. At the Farnborough Airshow on July 13, 2008, the group launched an entirely new aircraft for 100 to 150 passengers – and with it, for the first time, a direct attack on the smallest models from Airbus and Boeing. The CS100 flew on September 16, 2013, and the larger CS300 in February 2015.

The road into scheduled service was expensive and long. On June 29, 2016, Swiss took delivery of the first CS100 in Mirabel, and the first scheduled flight followed in July. airBaltic was the first airline to use the CS300, from December 2016. In 2016, Delta Air Lines also placed an order – and that is exactly what triggered a trade dispute. In 2017, Boeing complained to US authorities about alleged dumping, and the US Department of Commerce proposed penalty tariffs of almost 300 percent. In early 2018, the responsible trade commission overturned the decision.

By then, Bombardier had already set the course. In October 2017, Bombardier and Airbus announced a partnership. On July 1, 2018, Airbus took the majority of the program, and ten days later the C Series was officially renamed the A220: the CS100 became the A220-100, the CS300 the A220-300. In February 2020, Bombardier sold its remaining stake to Airbus and the province of Québec. Today Airbus holds 75 percent, Investissement Québec 25 percent.

The A220 continues to be built in Mirabel near Montreal, where the CRJ was once built as well, and additionally in Mobile (Alabama). For spotters in Europe, it has long been an everyday sight: Swiss, airBaltic and other airlines fly it regularly to German, Austrian and Swiss airports.

The big restructuring: Dash 8, Learjet and rail

The C Series had put heavy financial strain on Bombardier. To reduce its debt, the group parted with almost everything except the business jets within a good two years:

• Dash 8: The turboprop program with the Dash 8-400 went to Longview Aviation in June 2019. This gave rise to today’s De Havilland Aircraft of Canada, which revived the old name.
• CRJ: Takeover by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries on June 1, 2020.
• A220: Sale of the remaining stake to Airbus and Québec in February 2020.
• Aerostructures: The Belfast and Casablanca plants went to Spirit AeroSystems in the fall of 2020.
• Rail: Bombardier Transportation was sold to Alstom in January 2021.

A venerable brand fell away, too. In February 2021, Bombardier announced the end of Learjet production, and the last new Learjet 75 was delivered on March 28, 2022. That ended a line that had begun in 1963 with the Learjet 23. Classics like the Learjet 35 are still out there nonetheless, often as air ambulance or calibration aircraft. And the yellow Canadair CL-415 firefighting aircraft, whose production already ended in 2015, now also belong to De Havilland Canada.

Bombardier today: Challenger and Global

Since the restructuring, Bombardier has been a pure business jet manufacturer – and one of the big ones in this segment. In 2023, the group delivered 138 business jets. It has been led by Éric Martel since 2020, and the headquarters is in Montreal. Production takes place at two Canadian airports: the Challenger jets are built at Montreal-Trudeau, the Global family at Toronto Pearson Airport. Wichita is home to service, flight testing and the Bombardier Defense division, which handles special versions for military and government agencies.

The Challenger 3500 is the current form of a line that began in 2004 with the Challenger 300 at Flexjet. The Challenger 650, by contrast, descends directly from the original Challenger 600 and is thus one of the longest-lived aircraft families in the program. Many examples fly with fractional operators like NetJets or Flexjet.

The flagship is the large Global. The Global Express opened the class of ultra-long-range business jets in the late 1990s. The Global 7500 entered service in December 2018. In May 2021, a Global 7500 test aircraft reached Mach 1.015 in a slight descent as part of testing for the successor – according to Bombardier, the fastest flight of a civil aircraft since Concorde. The Global 8000 uses the same airframe and, according to the manufacturer, flies up to Mach 0.95 and 8,000 nautical miles. The first aircraft was delivered in December 2025. Because existing Global 7500s can be converted to the 8000 standard, you practically can’t tell the two apart from the outside – only the registration helps here.

How to recognize Bombardier aircraft

As different as the programs are, most Bombardier jets share a basic shape: engines at the rear, T-tail on top. That sets them apart from many competitors and helps you with a first narrowing down.

The most common mix-up in scheduled service is the CRJ with the Embraer E175. The rule of thumb: on the CRJ, the engines sit at the tail; on the Embraer, under the wings. You can read more in the article Identifying regional jets. Among business jets, Challenger and Global compete with Gulfstream, Dassault and Textron Aviation. The guide Telling Gulfstream, Global, Falcon, Citation and Challenger apart shows how to separate these families.

Where to spot Bombardier in Europe

For the CRJ, Germany has become difficult terrain. With the end of Lufthansa CityLine in April 2026, the last large CRJ900 fleet in the country has disappeared, and Eurowings stopped flying the type long ago. As of October 2026, it pays to look at other operators: Air Nostrum in Spain is known for the CRJ1000, and CityJet flies CRJ900s on behalf of other airlines. By far the largest fleets fly in North America, for example at SkyWest, Endeavor Air, PSA Airlines and Jazz.

Things look quite different with business jets. Challenger and Global land at almost every larger airport, but especially often at the strongholds of business aviation:

The A220, by contrast, is the easiest: it comes with Swiss, airBaltic and other airlines on schedule to many airports in the DACH region, for example to Frankfurt or Munich.

Spotting practice: planning business jets properly

Business jets follow no schedule. Whether a Global will land in Geneva tomorrow, you often only know shortly beforehand. Tracking services with a filter for the ICAO codes and alerts for specific types help. Note, though, that some operators have their flights hidden in public services. A missing entry therefore doesn’t mean no jet is coming. The basics are in the article Flight tracking with ADS-B.

At many airports, business jets park far from the terminal. So plan your spot according to the active runway and the taxiway to the general aviation apron, not according to the observation deck. Your best chances are at major events like trade fairs, summits or sporting events, when many jets arrive at once. The article Spotting business jets collects more tips, and Is plane spotting allowed? clears up legal questions.

For photography, keep in mind that the white liveries of many business jets blow out quickly. Expose a bit tighter and use low light in the morning or evening. You can plan the right time with the article Sun position at the photo spot. And if you are looking for the rare visitors among Bombardier jets – an old Learjet 35 or a CRJ1000 – the guide Spotting rare aircraft will help.

Bombardier compared with Airbus and Embraer

Bombardier’s history is closely tied to its competitors. With the C Series, the group wanted to take on Airbus and Boeing – in the end, the aircraft became an Airbus. In the regional jet market, the CRJ fought a decades-long duel with Embraer, which the Brazilians ultimately won with their E-Jet family. In business jets, by contrast, Bombardier is one of the leading manufacturers, on a par with Gulfstream.

For your collection, that means: Bombardier is a manufacturer with two faces. You hunt the historic programs with airlines, the current ones on the aprons of private flyers.

Conclusion

Bombardier has shaped aviation over the past 35 years more strongly than its present-day name suggests. The CRJ made the regional jet big, the C Series lives on as the A220, and brands like Learjet, Canadair and de Havilland Canada were at times under Bombardier’s roof. After the big restructuring between 2019 and 2021, only a core remains: the business jets of the Challenger and Global families.

For spotters, that is an exciting mix. You find the old programs with airlines and under new manufacturer names, the new jets on the aprons of Geneva, Le Bourget or Nice. If you keep an eye on rear engines, T-tails and ICAO codes, you can place almost any Bombardier jet with confidence.